


12 Cups

by thatfamoushappyending (betsytheoven)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (a tiny tiny bit of angst), Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Barista Stiles, Deputy Derek, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Oblivious Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-11 15:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betsytheoven/pseuds/thatfamoushappyending
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is a temporary barista at Cafe Luna and Deputy Hale is in charge of picking up coffee orders for the station some mornings.<br/>Some mornings quickly turns into most mornings, and coffee turns into "Hey look, I'm a werewolf and even your Dad can tell I have a thing for you!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

           The sun was just starting to rise above Beacon Hills, and only a handful of residents were awake and driving the streets. Those few who were mercilessly awake were making their way to the newest coffee shop in town, Café Luna. The daughter of the Martin family, the richest family in town, had recently graduated from Harvard, and during her boredom from graduating early whilst the rest of her friends were still in school, she decided to open a coffee shop.

            The desire stemmed more from a stint of boredom than contempt towards Starbucks, the only other coffee shop in town, but it was still a necessary change in Lydia’s eyes. Sure, there was always diner coffee, but Lydia Martin shot her friends a contemptuous look when they suggested she regularly drink the closest relative to dishwater. Thus, Café Luna was born.

            Lydia wanted to present only the best, so the coffee served was only the best, and a friend of hers prepared the food, though the recipes were kept top-secret. Many of her closest friends had attended Beacon Community College, so she had suckered them all into playing a part in the shop. Her boyfriend, Jackson, was the main cashier to attract the female college populous, while Allison made all of the drinks. Allison was gifted with the skills to consistently make amazing drinks at a relatively fast pace, leaving her the best barista Lydia could ask for. The girl’s boyfriend, Scott, was a bit of a klutz, but his skills in the kitchen were second to few. All it had taken was a few hopeful looks from Allison while Lydia asked him to bake for the shop for the boy to join the team.

            Lydia considered hiring others in the town, but with the booming success of Café Luna, she didn’t want to mess up the pattern. The only exception came when a bumbling bundle of flailing limbs and chatter wandered into the shop. Stiles was back from Berkeley for the summer, and Lydia eagerly swept her old high school competitor into the fold of her café.

            Despite only being open for half a year, Café Luna was a town favorite. Locals always chose Café Luna over Starbucks, though college students often found themselves camped out in the chain coffee store for the peace and quiet, effectively keeping the store in business.  Most, however, preferred the cozy, spacious café, with decent prices and a tightly knit staff, despite the constant flow of people in and out every day. The Beacon Hills County Police Department was also partial to having Café Luna for their morning coffee instead of canned break room coffee.

            That’s how Deputy Hale found himself eyeing the hyperactive man from across the counter on his way to work. As one of the newest members of the Department, he had to get the morning coffee. Usually Erica would pick it up, since she was a morning person, but she was sick that morning. Her boyfriend and fellow newbie, Boyd, wasn’t scheduled to come into work until later that day, so Derek was stuck picking up the coffee for the rest of the squad.

            “I’m sorry, you want _how_ many?” Stiles asked the uniformed man. He was beginning to think the two shots of espresso he had downed 20 minutes ago were starting to mess with his brain.

            “Twelve large dark roasts.” Derek repeated, eyebrows conveying his discontent.

            Stiles nodded slowly and counted out cups to fill. As he filled the cups, capped them and stuck them into holders, he hummed a bit. He wanted to make conversation with the slice of handsome standing on the other side of the counter but in true Stiles fashion, none of the planned openers actually came out. Instead, “So… having a rough morning?”

            Derek looked up at the barista, startled and confused. Stiles nodded towards the accumulating cups of coffee, “Rough morning?”

            With a sigh, Derek gave the barista a look, “They’re not all for me.”

            Stiles nodded, realizing the officer did not want to talk, but simply charged him the $15 for the drinks before watching the man expertly balance the drink caddies atop one another on his way out. Not that he would admit to watching the muscles stretch along the man’s arms as he balanced, but the _arms_ on him were… illegal, they had to be.

            Lydia walked in minutes later to find Stiles zoned out, staring at the door.

            “Stiles.” She looked at him expectantly when his head snapped up.

            He fumbled for words before sighing and just saying, “Muscles.” Lydia rolled her eyes and walked to the back office to work on the financial report for June. It wasn’t until later when he was placing the breakfast sandwiches that Scott had made into the display case that he registered that Mr. Bad Day was dressed in uniform and was probably picking up coffee for his coworkers. Stiles had to use great restraint to keep from banging his head against the counter when he made that connection. It wasn’t not like his dad was the Sheriff or anything. It wasn’t like Stiles had been frequenting the police station since his father was a deputy there, and he knew most of the people working there. It wasn’t like word travelled quickly in the department, especially when Stiles did something stupid (read: went out in public). Mr. Bad Day must have been a new recruit, since he had only been away for a few years. Stiles groaned again at his startlingly slow deductions, ignoring the fact that it had been before sunrise, his usual excuse in the morning.

            When Jackson strolled into the café around 8, he rolled his eyes at the boy pacing behind the counter and pushed him over towards Allison, who was making some weird concoction of fruit and coffee. She gave Stiles a kind smile and asked him to make espresso shots for the drinks. Stiles was kept busy doing prep work for Allison, since not even Stiles trusted himself to make drinks up to Allison’s standards. He tried to help Scott, but the two just got ridiculously distracted trying to put brownies in scones and cupcakes, so Lydia had to ban Stiles from the kitchen during the lunch rush.

            Stiles promised Lydia to work the morning shifts, so long as he only had to do it Thursday through Sunday. The rest of the days he wanted to sleep in and see if he could get some research done for the professor he was working with next semester. On second thought, Stiles figured he should probably do some work on the Honors Thesis paper that he was supposed to have done next year, but he figured he had a year, so he could procrastinate at least half of that, right?

            Either way, Stiles adjusted to working at the absurdly early morning hours for half the week, but he didn’t see the handsome Mr. Bad Day again that week. A gorgeous blonde woman in uniform came in the following day picking up the large order, and a tall, quiet man, also in uniform (how many of them were there?! Stiles wondered) accompanied the gorgeous woman on Saturday and Sunday. With a sigh, he realized that he wouldn’t get to see the handsome man as often as he had hoped.

 

* * *

 

            Stiles woke up Monday morning with a contented sigh when he read the 10:20 flickering on his alarm clock. He rolled back over and was about to fall back asleep to try to finish the very nice dream he was having (that may or may not have involved a certain law enforcement officer), when his phone started ringing. Stiles groaned into his pillow and flopped his arm around near his nightstand under he made contact with his phone.

            “Hullo?” Stiles mumbled into the phone, not willing to put in the effort to lift his head from the fluffy pillow.

            “Stiles, are you just now waking up? Wait, don’t answer that, of course you are.” His dad sighed fondly into the phone. “Look, I need you to do me a favor and go pick up food for the Department. We’re working on a serial killer case, and I think one of the _officers_ is going to turn into a murderer if there’s not food around soon. Would you mind picking up pizzas or something, son?”

            Stiles could hear the weary lilt in his voice, and swallowed a groan from having to get out of bed. He mumbled out some affirmative noise, “But I’m only picking up food that’s healthy. I’ll go pick up some sandwiches from Café Luna and I’ll be over in 30, ok?”

            The Sheriff just agreed with a small sigh towards his son’s efforts of being health-conscious. With a small grin, Stiles hung up on his dad and dialed the number for Café Luna. Placing the phone on speaker, he trudged over to his closet and plucked clothes out at random.

            “Hello?” Lydia’s pleasant business voice rang out through the tiny phone speaker.

            “Why don’t I ever get a greeting as pleasant as that? Am I not loved, oh Lydia, my love?” Stiles whined through a smile. He could practically hear Lydia rolling her eyes over the phone, but he pressed on.

            “I swear I’m not calling to annoy you, though that’s quite tempting. Could you have Scott put together 12 sandwiches for the station? Only one has to be healthy, and then he can do whatever he wants.” Lydia gave him the price and told him to drive by in 15 minutes to pick them.

            10 minutes later Stiles is trudging downstairs and out to his Jeep, barely functioning. He hardly remembers the 5-minute drive to Café Luna, and Alison seems to recognize that as he wanders into the shop. Stiles hands over his debit card to Jackson, who gives him a strange look as he yawns.

            “How are you so tired, Stilinski?” Jackson asked with a slight sneer

            Stiles merely glared, until Alison slid a tall coffee across the counter at him. He inhaled the steam with a relieved smile and sipped on the drink until Scott emerged from the back room, carrying a large paper bag.

            “Here you go, man. Your dad’s sandwich is all healthy with sprouts and everything,” Scott made a slight face, “and it’s labeled ‘Sheriff,’ so there should be no confusion.”

            Stiles flashed him a thankful smile, before sliding the bag into his arms, and nodding at the staff before exiting the shop, coffee already drained before he reached his car.

            The 5-minute drive to the police station took Stiles 10 minutes, because he was entirely too distracted from remembering his dreams and his Jeep stalled at a red light. He also may or may not have had to stop at the gas station on his way to save his Jeep from running on empty. When he finally pulled into the police station parking lot, the caffeine had hit him, and he was finally awake and ready to start his day.

            Larry was sitting at the front desk of the station, and once he saw Stiles, he smiled and nodded him towards the back, where the interrogation rooms and the Sheriff’s office were. Stiles grinned and strolled towards one of the meeting rooms. He quickly found the right room, as it was filled with exhausted looking officers and deputies. With a quick devious grin, Stiles bumped the door open with his hip and slid into the room.

            “I come bearing love!” He exclaimed loudly with a proud grin, “Or you know, sandwiches, however you want to see it.”

            Most of the members of the room rolled their eyes fondly at Stiles, except for the few in the back corner. Stiles tried not to drop the sandwiches he was extracting from the bag and passing around the main table when he noticed Mr. Bad Day was standing in the back corner with his arms crossed. He was actually standing next to the blonde woman and taller man who had picked up coffee that weekend, and Stiles looked closer at their uniforms, determining that they were deputies. Internally, Stiles was screaming and wondering is the Hot Deputy could just _tell_ he was dreaming about him the previous night, until his dad pulled him out of his brain.

            Stiles slid out of the room with his dad, slipping the blatantly labeled sandwich into the Sheriff’s hands as they moved. The Sheriff smiled appreciatively, but rubbed his hand over his face.

            “Thanks for doing this, kiddo. We can’t figure this damn case out. Some of these guys have been here for almost 48 hours now and I just… I feel like we’re missing something.”

            Stiles nodded quietly, hoping if he didn’t speak, his father would give him some more information, something so Stiles could try to help figure out this serial killer. But his dad just looked at him.

            “Ah, thanks again, Stiles. Go home, though. You’re not getting involved in this one.” Stiles sighed overdramatically as his dad made his way across the hallway, back to the room.

            “Oh, when are you going to be home tonight, Dad?” Stiles asked, ever the worried son.

            The older man sighed and answered with a vague answer, meaning he may be camping out at the station. Stiles nodded softly and made his way back outside, but not before stealing one last glance at the Hot Deputy in the corner… who was staring back at him. Stiles did _not_ squeak, thank you very much, and dashed out of the station, waving to Front Desk Larry on his way out.

            All that caffeine from his coffee earlier needed to go somewhere, so Stiles drove himself home and spent at least an hour in his backyard bouncing the lacrosse ball against the wall, laying in the grass, and just generally messing around outside. When he got bored with that, he spent some time playing World of Warcraft, but after two hours of that, he needed to move around. He called Scott to see when he finished with work, but got impatient and just jogged the entire way to Café Luna. He sat at a table close to the counter so he could chat with people as they walked in. Around 3, no one was waiting for a drink, so Allison sat with Stiles.

            “How are you doing Stiles?” She asked amicably.

            “Who is the new Hot Deputy?” Stiles blurted out, ignoring the slightly crazed look in his eye.

            Allison blinked and smothered a giggle, “Was it bugging you that much, Stiles?”

            Stiles rubbed his head and pushed his forehead against the wood table with a frustrated noise. “Yes!” He mumbled into the table.

            Allison laughed a bit, “His name is Derek Hale, Stiles. He used to live around here, apparently?”

            Stiles’ head popped back up at the new information, “Derek Hale? The one whose house burned down?”

            Allison shrugged, and excused herself quickly, so she could make a complex drink for Mrs. Baker. Stiles chewed his lip, trying to remember what he remembered of Derek Hale. He remembered he had a kick-butt sister, and his family always showed up to the town festivals… He hadn’t paid much attention to the eldest son, though.

            “Ahh!” Stiles screeched and flailed from shock, when Danny slapped his hand down on the boy’s shoulder.

            “Hi to you too, Stiles.” Danny said with a small smirk. Stiles mock-glared at him for a while, before chattering with him. Danny caught him up with some basic gossip he had missed while away (like how Mrs Perkins had managed to chuck her walker through almost all of her windows, so they had to hire a caregiver just to keep her from knocking out more windows. Somehow Stiles thought the windows weren’t the biggest problem there…), including the hiring of three new deputies. Danny gushed about Boyd, the tall, quiet man, who was unfortunately straight and dating the blonde deputy, Erica. When he talked about Derek and his muscles (his muscles!), Stiles smothered everything he wanted to say. He squirmed a bit when Danny started talking about the benefits of the Deputy uniform, but managed not to blurt out his newfound obsession with his dad’s coworker.

            When Stiles finally arrived home for the night, his dad was still not back from the station. He sighed at having to go to bed knowing his dad was still stressing at work, but decided sleep was necessary.

* * *

           

            The Sheriff came home late Monday night, and slept in Tuesday night, before heading back to the station to work over the case with the younger deputies who were more accustomed to working on minimal sleep. Derek greeted him with a cup of Café Luna coffee, and the older man raised an eyebrow at him. The man was pouting as much as the stoic man could, and Erica was smirking to herself while she looked at the county map that was covered in red X marks where the bodies were found.

            Boyd wore an amused look, and jotted a note on the napkin he used to hand a bagel to the Sheriff. The Sheriff subtly read the note as he opened his bagel.

 

 

            _He didn’t get to see his new favorite barista at Café Luna._

            The Sheriff chuckled softly, glad the stoic man had something else in his life to distract from all the bad that seemed to befall him. While he ate his bagel gloriously smothered in butter and cream cheese, two illegal things in the Stilinski household, according to Stiles, he tried to figure out with whom Derek was infatuated. He normally wouldn’t pry, but Derek had unconsciously become his favorite within the department. The kid worked hard, occasionally cracked the best jokes, and always, always indulged the Sheriff in foods on Stiles’ official department-wide List of Foods the Sheriff is Banned From. So when he realized that, since Lydia was big on keeping a small but dedicated staff, the only new person who could be working at Café Luna could be none other than Stiles, he nearly choked on his bagel. The three deputies glanced over at him, but he waved his hand assuredly at them, so they went back to their map analysis. He tried really hard not to, but well, Stiles’ impulses did not come solely from his mother. The Sheriff couldn’t keep from staring at Derek, trying to picture his favorite deputy with his only son. It wasn’t as hard to imagine as he would have thought, the strange mix almost reminded the Sheriff of his relationship with his wife. Though the poor deputy would probably run far and fast when he really got to know Stiles, the older man decided with a sigh that he was too old for the matchmaking scene. The two men would have to figure this out for themselves. With a fond sigh, he eased himself out of the chair, and went back to studying the various victims, trying to make a connection. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the mistakes, I just wrote this while I was taking a break from studying for finals!
> 
> I am probably too obsessed with Coffee Shop AUs, sooooo sorry about that too!
> 
> If you ever want to request a story or a prompt or just chat, feel free to head on over to [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/)
> 
> If for some reason you felt kudos weren't enough, [my ko-fi page is now up & running!](ko-fi.com/kimske)
> 
> Thank you for reading, lovelies!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek showed up for coffee on Friday.  
> Derek showed up for coffee on Saturday.  
> Derek showed up for coffee on Sunday. 
> 
> Derek didn’t get coffee Monday.  
> Derek didn’t get coffee Tuesday.  
> Derek didn’t get coffee Wednesday.
> 
> Well then.

“What’s the recipe for coffee that wakes me up in a minute?” Stiles grumbled as he refilled bottles and cleaned pumps and utensils the next Thursday morning. Allison laughed and just told him she would make him something really strong is he cleaned the espresso machine and milk frother. He turned up the music and cleaned them up. Allison walked around the counter and flipped the sign from Closed to Open once it was 6am.

            Around 10 minutes later, Allison noticed a County police car pull into the parking lot in front of the café. She had to use all of her restraint not to laugh when she saw Derek slide out of the car. The stale yet almost excited expression on his face was almost an exact mirror of Stiles’ face when the door opened and he saw the Deputy walking in. Allison checked the coffee machine to make sure it had the necessary 12 cups of coffee in the canister, before inconspicuously slipping into the kitchen to check on Scott.

            Stiles fumbled around a bit, already counting out the cups by the time Derek was standing in front of the register. After the blonde woman and the tall man (Erica and Boyd, he reminds himself) had come into the Café before dawn asking for the same 12 cups of coffee the previous week, Stiles had picked up on the fact that the newest deputies were in charge of getting coffee for the station. He started filling them up after politely greeting Derek with a simple, “good morning.”

            Derek stood there awkwardly, realizing Stiles wasn’t planning on holding a conversation with him. He squirmed a bit, remembering Erica and Boyd not so subtly mentioning their long conversations with the barista that lasted right until they pushed their way out the door towards their car. Stiles was filling up the fifth cup when Derek’s mouth decided to end the silence.

            “I’m Derek Hale.” Derek nearly slammed his head against the counter. Beacon Hills wasn’t that big of a town, he must’ve heard his name by now. Stiles looked up, startled.

            “Uh, I’m Stiles Stilinski.” He said, filling up the next cup with a small smile. Derek heard the faint stutter of Stiles’ heart from across the counter, and counted that a win. If he could make Stiles’ heart react to a simple introduction, maybe he had a chance after all.

            “Stilinski? So your father is the Sheriff, then.” Derek said quietly. Stiles nodded, though it was hard to distinguish from his bobbing to the music.

            “Soooo…” Derek was trying so, so hard to figure out how to hold a conversation with this guy, who was supposedly one of the most talkative people in town.

            “Look, Derek, you don’t have to try to hold a conversation with me just because my Dad is your boss.” He sighed as he sat down the last cup on the counter.

            Derek nearly choked on his own spit in shock. Did Stiles seriously think the only reason he was struggling through even saying a couple words to him was because Derek didn’t want to offend his boss? He pulled out the money to pay for the cups of coffee, which Stiles took stiffly. When Stiles turned around, Derek crammed multiple bills in the tip jar as a last resort, and walked everything outside with a visible droop to his shoulders. The Sheriff watched the dejected deputy wander into the conference room with the coffees, and had to bite back a smile when Erica asked him what happened.

            “Aw, Derek what happened this morning? Didn’t your little crush immediately fall in love with your charm and kindness?” Erica asked with a smirk as she added a few creams to her coffee cup.

            Derek’s glare could have curdled milk, but Erica just threw a smug grin his way before going back to the papers spread across the table. The Sheriff turned to look at the board that laid out the assorted victims with where they were found, mainly so he could hide his own grin. It was like having more children, not that the Sheriff would ever admit that he enjoyed the constant bickering between the new deputies.

            Derek mumbled something about the barista hating him, and all the Sheriff caught was that Stiles hadn’t been talkative, and Derek was suddenly avoiding eye contact with the Sheriff. _Ah,_ the Sheriff chuckled to himself, _Derek must have figured out Stiles is my son. That didn’t take nearly as long as I had expected._

Boyd laid a hand on Erica’s shoulder and gave her a slight reprimanding glare. Erica rolled her eyes good-heartedly and left Derek to his brooding. The other eight officers on duty came to work on the case when they weren’t called out into town. They were making slow progress on the case, and he only called it progress because they determined that there were no new victims this week. The Sheriff still had no clue who could have caused all of the murders. There were no escaped murderers, none on parole that had gone missing, and no psychological patients unaccounted for. There was no motive to account for, no suspicious townspeople, no one that the Sheriff could even begin to look at for clues. The attacks looked like animal attacks—claw marks, evisceration, teeth marks—but the cuts for evisceration were so precise and the body placements were strategic, so the victims wouldn’t be seen or smelled for days. It was nearly a miracle when Derek located the latest body, tucked inside a rotting tree deep within the preserve. The Sheriff suspected foul play last week, but after looking over all the evidence and reports again, he couldn’t find any proof. He was at his wit’s end, perfectly sure that he was missing some important fact in the case, but he was without any leads, leaving him up this hellhole of a creek without a paddle.

            The Sheriff looked up to see Derek’s slightly amused face across the table.

            “Go home, Sheriff.” He said, kindly.

            The Sheriff sighed, and looked back up at the deputy with a tired smile, “Call me John, Derek.”

            Derek’s mouth turned up slightly, “Go home, John.”

            The Sheriff rolled his eyes with a smile and gathered his things. As he was walking out the door, he turned back with a smile, “I’m sure the barista will warm up to you, just give it time.” Derek’s suspiciously pinker complexion turned the Sheriff’s smile into a grin, “Can’t wait for my coffee bright and early tomorrow morning!”

            A groan sounded behind him as he slid out of the station. With a chuckle, he drove home to find Stiles on the couch in the living room, limbs all splayed in different directions.

            “Uh, son? You ok over there?” Stiles merely groaned in response.

            “Is it that exhausting not making coffee?” A pillow came flying towards the front door that the Sheriff caught easily.

            Stiles rolled over on the couch so he was lying on his stomach, staring at his dad with desperate eyes. “It’s not the job. I’m just bemoaning my idiocy when it comes to attractive people.” He groaned again and attempted to roll over again on the couch, resulting in a rapid collision with the floor.

            “Oh son, have you _fallen_ for someone?” John asked as he slipped his holster off and hung it on the rack by the door.

            “Cute, Dad, but only one of us is allowed to crack jokes, and that’s really all I’ve got, so you can’t take that away from me.” Stiles said, leaning on the couch from his position on the floor.

            “I’m Sheriff, kiddo.” He smiled at Stiles, “But who is causing the melodramatic scene? It’s not still Lydia Martin, is it? Because I thought we talked about this before you went off to school…”

            Stiles flailed his arms, “No! No, Dad, I don’t like Lydia Martin!” He laughed but his father’s expectant look turned his laugh into a nervous chuckle.

            “What?”

            “Seriously, Stiles? Are we going to act like you’re in middle school again? Just tell me who it is. It’s not like I can do anything about it, right?” Stiles’ nervous chuckling elevated to a newer, higher pitch. The Sheriff raised his eyebrows and managed to contain his laughter, “Kiddo?”

            “It doesn’t matter Dad! How about I make dinner now? Dinner sounds great!” Stiles scrambled up off the couch and made his way into the kitchen, trying to minimalize his fidgeting.

            John wandered into the kitchen and leaned against one of the counters, a smile creeping onto his face.

            “Stiles, just tell me who it is. I’ll… I’ll eat Scott’s sprout sandwiches for the rest of the week.” He offered, cringing internally.

            “Dad, it’s Thursday evening.” Stiles deadpanned. The Sheriff shrugged, still looking at Stiles expectantly.

            Stiles groaned and threw some of the salad materials onto the counter in frustration. He tried to start a few times before he finally just exploded, “Derek Hale!”

            John looked up from where he had settled in at the table with a newspaper. He nodded with a small smile and went back to reading the paper. He actually was trying to find evidence of the killings happening elsewhere in the country, but it proved a great way to annoy his son.

            “What. All of that, and you don’t even _say_ anything?” Stiles narrowed his eyes at his dad as he tossed the salad. “You, oh father of mine, suck.”

            His father just smiled over his paper and tilted his head a bit in a sort of “cheers” gesture. Stiles rolled his eyes and went back to abusing the salad.

            Stiles finally had the table set with a variety of health-conscious foods, and sat down next to his dad to eat. John scooted his chair in, and looked over at Stiles with the most innocent look on his face, “So I should send Derek for coffee Thursdays through Sundays, right?”

            He chuckled when the only response was a strangled mix of a glare and a pleading look. Stiles chose to ignore him for the rest of dinner, only occasionally breaking his cold shoulder act when his father was looking over information for the serial killer case. 

* * *

 

Derek showed up for coffee on Friday.

Derek showed up for coffee on Saturday.

Derek showed up for coffee on Sunday.

 

By Monday, Stiles was sure someone had told Derek about his schedule. Or he was just in charge of picking up coffee all the time, but usually new deputies share the duty, since it requires getting up at an absurd hour that Stiles was unfortunately getting accustomed to. But Stiles was going to stick with the betrayal theory.

            His dad swore he didn’t tell Derek, but that he wished he had the pleasure of instigating this. And none of his coworkers had said anything to the Deputy, because he never came in on Stiles’ days off, and even when the deputy was in the shop, he was only trying to engage one person in conversation while he prepared the coffees.

            Stiles wasn’t going to overthink this. It wasn’t like he got giddy every time one of the banged up deputy cars drove through town, just because Derek drove one of them when he was on duty. He was not acting like a silly high schooler with a crush, thank you very much. He was being very mature about this entire ordeal. He hadn’t ambushed Derek and chased him like a puppy, so he counts that a serious achievement.

            Preventing himself from chasing the well-muscled deputy like a puppy did not mean that he couldn’t hold conversations with him like any normal person. So conversations were had. Every morning shift Stiles had, Derek would come in, ask a random question, and Stiles would craft an answer to perfectly fit the time from Derek asking the question, to him balancing the coffees on top of each other to get out the door. It was… it was progress.

 

* * *

 

Derek didn’t get coffee Monday.

Derek didn’t get coffee Tuesday.

Derek didn’t get coffee Wednesday.

 

Derek had reached new, previously unthinkable levels of caffeine intake since meeting Stiles. His body wasn’t really affected by it, but he still ran extra when he got back from work to keep in shape. It’s not that he focused on his looks, but he had heard Stiles mumbling something about his muscles while Derek heard his heart pounding during their first encounter, so he had been paying just slightly more attention to his workout routine.

            Whenever he drove through town in the County deputy car, he tried to find Stiles. On those occasions where he did see him somewhere in Beacon Hills, he tried to find some excuse for talking to him, though he never really managed to come up with a good enough cover story to actually get out of the car. It was pitiful, he knew that really, but he reassured himself with the fact that Stiles didn’t actually know a man four years older than him was desperately pining after him. It didn’t help that the full moon was getting closer, and Derek was going to have to spend the next few nights patrolling the woods for the rogue werewolf in the forest. Then he was going to have to spend the entire day in the office trying to solve the mystery of the serial killer, when he, Erica, and Boyd already know exactly what’s causing all of the issues. But to say aloud that the serial killer is a crazed, abandoned werewolf that is currently lurking in the Beacon Hills Preserve… well, let’s just say the new deputies enjoyed their jobs, and had better ways of handling the situation. Still, sleep was a necessary thing, even for werewolves. So his schedule of long days and long nights was not conducive to picking up coffee from Café Luna at ass-crack of dawn. Derek had just resigned himself to the fact that his body, mind, and wolf had all decided Stiles was a necessary part of the day, and he was just going to have to make those trips worth it.

His tactic for making the early morning detours worth it? Random questions.

“Favorite mythical creature?” Stiles then launched into a whole speech on the fascinating werewolves (“Don’t judge me! They’re really cool, I swear and the actual myths are way better than that Twilight stuff. I’m sure werewolves would have to wear shirts more often than those guys did.”).

“Favorite shirt?” Stiles discussed the merits of his vintage Batman shirt.

“Favorite drink?” Stiles made Derek a dark roast with whipped cream and caramel drizzle.

“Best memory?” Picnic in the park with his mom and dad, Stiles had said quietly.

“Weirdest high school experience?” Senior prank.

 

It was weird, but then again, it was Stiles and Derek. The Sheriff caught wind of these interactions, he didn’t know whether or not to be disappointed in the two boys for not picking up on the other’s attraction, or in himself for expecting the boys to be anything less than their usual personally clueless selves. He had to restrain himself multiple times from starting a betting pool at the station, but by the second week of Derek picking up coffee by himself from Café Luna, Front Desk Larry had started a betting pool that was slowly expanding to include a large chunk of the town. As Sheriff, John should put a stop to it. As Stiles’ father and Derek’s boss, he places a bet that they will have their first date before the end of July, only a month and a half away.

John can practically hear his wife laughing over his shoulder, telling him to place more money on the bet. They both know he’s going to be the closest after getting to know both parties, but as Sheriff, John limits himself to only a few dollars for the betting pool. He was going to win. He _is_ Sheriff Stilinski, after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! WOW you all were so kind with your kudos and oh-so-lovely comments! I cannot tell you how much better your comments and such made my finals week. 
> 
> Sorry for any mistakes, I just got home via an 18-hour drive back from school and wanted to post this before I slept, so there hasn't been any editing done. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading and please feel free to share what you would like to see (or not see?) and what you liked! Please drop prompts and ideas and questions over at [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) !
> 
> If for some reason you felt kudos weren't enough, [my ko-fi page is now up & running!](ko-fi.com/kimske)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's usually a bad thing when finding a body on your front lawn isn't the weirdest thing that happens in a day.

Stiles stumbled downstairs at some ungodly hour in the morning, woken up by flashing lights and yelling outside his window. He opened his door with as much anger as he could muster without his brain actually functioning.

“What the hell—“ Stiles froze mid-sentence when he saw the 4 cop cars in front of his house, the yellow surrounding his entire lawn and his car, and an exhausted group of deputies and his father.

“Stiles, get back inside.” The Sheriff tried to shoo his son inside, hoping with all his might that he wouldn’t notice the body shredded across the lawn and beneath the Jeep.

“Dad, why is there… oh god, not under my Jeep too!” John sighed heavily. So much for that.

“Kiddo, go back inside. I have to talk with the deputies and the forensics when they get here.”

            Stiles was shaking his head, but Derek sighed and stepped towards the boy. Stiles would probably have freaked out more if he weren’t so distracted by the bloody corpse strewn across his yard. Derek cautiously grabbed Stiles’ wrist and pulled him into the house.

            “What… what the hell is even…” Stiles looked like he was short-circuiting, so Derek pushed him over to the couch.

            “Look, we think this is another murder by the serial killer, so we want as few people involved as possible. Meaning, no college kids bemoaning their precious Jeeps.”

            Stiles was fidgeting with his hands, but looked up with a wry smile.

            “I think that’s the most you’ve ever said to me, Deputy Hale.”

            Derek looked at the boy incredulously. There was a body in his front yard and that was his first coherent thought?

            “OK, so since I am now officially involved, can you tell me what we’re dealing with here?” Stiles crossed his arms, determined not to be distracted by the muscles practically bulging out of the deputy’s uniform shirt.

            Derek shook his head, “I don’t know if that’s the most advisable…” He paused at the stern look Stiles was giving him. “Ok, so we can’t figure out any motive, pattern, or killing instrument for any of these murders. The Department can’t even begin to guess who it is.”

            Stiles was quiet for a few minutes, before asking a few questions. Derek relented and described the murders and Stiles came up with the same questions that the deputies had been throwing around for the past two weeks.

            “So if that’s all we can figure out with the facts, what’s the circumstantial evidence?” Derek had to bite back a smile, seeing how Stiles followed the same investigative approach as his father.

            “The vet says the marks all look like an animal attack, but the precision is human. The attacks aren’t always as obvious as this one…” Stiles picked up on the worried tone in the deputy’s voice.

            “So it’s probably a warning to the Sheriff to stop looking into it?” Derek nodded noncommittally, though he figured that was exactly what was happening.

            “What if the killer isn’t just a human?” Derek looked up. Where was Stiles going with this?

            “What if the animal attacks are the killer’s pet? They could control the animal and then their prints wouldn’t be left on the body, but they could still orchestrate the killings. What kind of animal did Dr. Deaton think it was?”

            “You know Dr. Deaton?” Stiles nodded, hurriedly explaining his best friend works for him, before motioning for him to answer his question.

            “He… well, he thinks the marks look like wolf marks, but—“

            “There aren’t any wolves in California. I know, I tried to find them as a kid. All I wanted for my 8th birthday was to be best friends with a wolf. But how could… wolves aren’t easy to hide around here, especially with everyone on the lookout for them, right?”

            Derek covered up his snort with a cough. “Wolves” were easier to cover up than most people thought. Stiles was still deeply submerged within his brain, when the door slammed open. Stiles could have sworn he saw a flash of color in Derek’s eyes, but he just chalked it up to the flashing lights outside and his non-functioning state.

            “Derek, the Sheriff needs you outside.” Erica nodded at Stiles, “You stay here.”

            Stiles sighed and waited until they had closed the door to peek out the window. His father was pointing to stuff on the ground, and the forensics team was scrambling around the scene collecting as much information as they could, as they sun began to rise. The citizens of Beacon Hills would be waking soon and they had to get the murder scene cleaned up before people could freak out about the murders getting too close to town. It was also Thursday again, so Stiles had to splash some water on his face before heading out to work. There were still a few cars left outside his house when he walked outside.

            “Stiles, is there any other way for you to get to work? We want to double check that the Jeep wasn’t tampered with.” His dad said, rubbing the back of his neck, knowing his son’s attachment to the run-down car.

            “Not really Dad! I mean, no one else is up right now, and Lydia is going to kill me if I’m not there to open up!” Stiles ran a hand through his hair.

            “Come on.” Derek motioned to his Deputy car parked across the street.

            Stiles had so many protests, but finally decided to just go with it. It’s not like he was really against it, and if Derek drove him to work, did that mean he would pick him up too? He slid into the passenger’s seat and buckled his seatbelt.

            “Thanks, I know you’re tired too. I can see if Scott can give me a ride home after his shift.” He snuck a glance over at the Deputy, noticing the wrinkle in his forehead.

            “That’s ok. I’ll be around. Today’s my day off.” Stiles shot him a look, but couldn’t read anything on the calm face.

            “Since when?” Derek just smiled a bit as they pulled up to Café Luna.

            “Get out, Stiles.”

            Stiles obliged with a bit of mumbling about dumb non-communicative deputies and their stupid cryptic-ness. He waved at the deputy as he walked into the shop.

            Lydia popped her head out of the back office when she heard the door open and was about to rip Stiles a new one before she saw the weary look on the guy’s face. She told him to start polishing the mugs until Allison arrived. She switched the sign to Open, before strolling back into her office, calling over her shoulder that Stiles was in charge for now. No burning down the shop and all that. Stiles rolled his eyes but kept cleaning behind the counter.

            The bells on the door chimed and Stiles looked up to see Derek walking in. He walked up to the counter and ordered a Mocha Cappuccino with a shit-eating grin. Stiles froze for a few seconds.

            “Isn’t it your day off?”

            Derek raised an eyebrow at him, money held out across the counter.

            “Ok, sorry. Just… you don’t have to hang around for me, you know that, right?” Derek just nodded as he dumped his change of around $7 into the tip jar. Stiles threw up his hands as he walked over to the coffee machine and made Derek’s drink. He walked it over to the table that the deputy was sitting at. He had settled into the table directly across from the counter, and had pulled out his laptop.

            “OK, so are we back to the one-sided conversations now? Is Deputy Hale only talkative at the ass-crack of dawn?” Derek cracked a small smile.

            “No, I just don’t want to disturb you while you’re at work.” Stiles wanted to slap that smug grin off his face, but a couple of local college students wandered in, so he had to hurry behind the counter. He spent the next few minutes pointedly avoiding looking at the deputy, though he could feel the eyes following him behind the counter. Luckily, Allison walked in minutes later, and relieved Stiles of singularly trying to avoid eye contact. She entertained Stiles with a story of Scott nearly mutilating his hand in his apartment when they were watching a movie last night.

            Every time one of the locals wandered into the shop though, they struck up a conversation with Deputy Hale. Apparently everyone in town was either taken with him, or looked up to him. It kind of irritated Stiles the way the man could chat easily with others, but barely talked with him. The two of them probably had the weirdest relationship in town, though, so he didn’t know why he expected anything else. Of course the one guy who attracted his attention lately would be the center of everyone else’s affections as well. So the entirety of Stiles’ shift was spent avoiding eye contact with Derek, but also listening in on all the conversations he had. When his shift ended, he slipped back to talk with Lydia about his payment method, before walking into the main shop area. Derek was mid-conversation with Mrs. Mills, but when he noticed Stiles walking out of the office, he excused himself with a kind smile.

            “Ready to go?” Stiles was a bit stunned at his attentiveness, but nodded. Derek walked ahead of him and held the door open for Stiles. When they reached the car, Derek hopped in first before reaching across to unlock Stiles’ door. He drove Stiles back to his house, and as Stiles was unlocking his door, Derek hesitated, but still yelled,  “Call me if anything happens Stiles.”

            Stiles looked back at him, severely confused. “I don’t have your number…?”

            Derek just grinned and pushed his sunglasses down from his hair and drove off. How was that cool? How could he make pulling away with a _County Deputy car_ look cool? Some people should just not be allowed in public, Derek officially taking the first place spot on that list.

            Stiles just sighed and sat down in front of his computer once he was inside and breathing normally again. As he waiting for the computer to turn on, he scrolled through his contacts, noticing Deputy Hale as a new contact. How did he even do that? Stiles had barely had his phone out around him and he would have remembered the Deputy taking his phone. _The dude’s a ninja. That or some freaky version of the Flash_ , Stiles thought.

            Stiles spent the rest of his day emailing back and forth with one of his professors. He had taken a Mythology class in the spring semester, and had gotten along really well with the professor. They had spent hours discussing versions of myths, though his professor got all sorts of offended if Stiles said anything bad about witches. Sometimes Stiles worried a bit about his professor’s sanity, but then he remembered his hour-long rant about werewolves and why he wants them to be real, and decided they were both about equal on the sanity level. So they were emailing back and forth, discussing what Stiles could do for his Honors Thesis. As a History major, Stiles was thinking of tracing the history of werewolf mythology through American History, and his professor was trying to find him some solid resources to interview during the summer. An email arrived right before he had to go get dinner ready for his dad, so he quickly opened it. His professor had found a woman in New York who was big on mythology and taught it at NYU and was a guest lecturer at a variety of other New York schools. Her name was Laura Hale, and Stiles nearly freaked out when his professor said she was actually a California native. He didn’t know how to reply to the email, so he just typed a quick thank you before wandering downstairs. He made himself a cup of coffee, experimenting with the few flavors he had in the house, while he waited for the vegetable casserole to cook. He tried not to think too hard about Laura Hale, but he couldn’t help but wonder if she was related to Derek Hale. He knew that three people made it out of the huge Hale house fire, but he barely remembered each of the Hales.

            When he sat down with his Dad for dinner, he asked him if Deputy Hale happened to have a sister, and he nodded as he tried to pick the broccoli out of the casserole. His dad looked up when Stiles didn’t ask anything else, “Why? Thought you were interested in Derek, not his sister?”

            Stiles struggled not to spit out his water, trying to pretend his father wasn’t way too interested in his son’s love life. “No, _father_ , I’m not trying for Laura. It’s for my Honors Thesis.”

            His dad just smiled a bit, and after finishing most of his casserole, carried his dish up to the sink, waiting until Stiles wasn’t paying much attention again.

            “So how was your day with Derek?” A balled up napkin was thrown his way, but the Sheriff just gave his son an innocent look.

            “Erica and Vernon said Derek didn’t drop by the office until after your shift was over, and his car was parked outside Café Luna most of the day…” Stiles rolled his eyes. This is what happened when your father was the Sheriff.

            “Ok, first of all, who is Vernon and why is he involved in my business?” Stiles asked, frustrated. His dad just chuckled and said, “Vernon is Deputy Boyd? You went to school, shouldn’t you know what his first name is?”

            Stiles just muttered something about threats to his life if he uttered Vernon in school, but moved on. “And why do you even care about Derek’s stupid schedule?”

            “Oh, kiddo, I just think you and Derek would make a good match. Even each other out, you know?” Stiles groaned and got up from the table.

            “I swear you’re worse than Ms. McCall!” He said, retreating back to his room with his dad’s chuckling following him all the way up the stairs.

 

* * *

 

            The next morning Derek didn’t come in to grab the department coffees, but Stiles did get to chat with Erica when she came in with the 12 coffee order. Right as he walked out from behind the counter and was walking to Lydia’s office to ask for a ride home (since his Jeep was still at the department and his dad had dropped him off that morning), the bells on the front door rang.

            “Stiles, you ready?” Allison looked like she was going to pee herself from giggling, when Stiles turned to see Derek holding his keys up expectantly.

            “Uh, yeah.” He dazedly followed the Deputy out of Café Luna and into his car. The ride back to his house was relatively quiet, except for Derek’s warning to stay out of the woods.

            “We think the killer is in the woods right now, so until we locate him, just avoid it, ok?” Stiles nodded numbly, debating whether to tell Derek he was going to go into the woods now just to spite him, or to ask about Laura Hale. He ended up doing neither and just waved softly before wandering into his house.

            He hadn’t gone running since high school, but he figured with all of the sweet coffee he had been drinking all year, he needed to burn off some of those calories. He unearthed his athletic shoes from the depths of his closet, left his dad a note saying he went running (smartly omitting, “the woods,” so as to avoid potential heart attacks) and plugged into his ipod. He was about halfway through his jog when he saw the bushes in front of him moving. He slowed to a stop and took out his earphones. He didn’t hear anything and the bushes had stopped moving. He walked towards it slowly, absolutely aware that he could be stepping towards a potential serial killer. He pushed the bushes apart to find a black wolf with red eyes staring back at him. The scream that escaped Stiles’ mouth was anything but manly, but he was potentially looking at the killing machine that was accompanying the serial killer. Except, upon second glance, the wolf looked like anything but a monster. The wolf, while being exceptionally large, was sitting back on it’s haunches, tail wagging much like a dog, ears pricked towards Stiles. It looked… almost adorable?

            “Laura? Dammit Laura you can’t run off like that! Someone might—“ Derek came running up from the side of the trail and froze when he saw Stiles reaching out towards Laura the wolf, one hand almost petting her head, the other partially covering his eyes. The wolf looked at Derek and with what could only be described as a grin, pushed her head into Stiles’ outstretched hand. Stiles nearly screeched when he realized Derek was there too.

            “Wait. A wolf… and a human in the woods… oh shit! Derek…. You’re not… oh shit the serial killer is you. That’s why the department can’t figure out who it is!” Stiles was freaking out and backing away, but Derek was slowly walking forward, trying not to freak him out. Laura calmly closed her mouth around Stiles’ hand, not hard enough to do any damage, but hard enough to keep the boy near her.

            “Laura! You’re scaring him more!” Derek sighed and rubbed a hand along his face. Laura wagged her tail and walked towards Derek, hand still in mouth. Stiles’ heartbeat was racing, and Derek wanted to kick Laura, but that would look cruel.

            “I guess we have to explain… Follow me.” Stiles figured he didn’t have any other choice but to follow Derek further into the depths of the woods, but he couldn’t help but see the headlines of ‘Sheriff’s son found dead in the woods.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, can I just say you all are some of the most supportive people ever? Honestly, I want to hug each and every one of you!
> 
> Feel free to pop on by [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) and say hi! I would love to hear from you all and talk about your ideas :)
> 
> I'm hoping to update this sooner now that I'm done with school for the summer!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After 5 minutes of walking through the woods, Stiles caught sight of a house that looked like it was left on the barbeque too long, and the big bad wolf would have no problem blowing it down. Stiles chuckled nervously to himself, could he make big bad wolf jokes? Probably not, especially if Derek was going to kill him.

Stiles stumbled his way behind Derek, who kept glancing back at him with a worried look. This did nothing to soothe Stiles’ nerves, and he probably would have taken off running, if not for “Laura” the wolf walking directly behind him, occasionally nudging the back of his legs if he got too far behind Derek.

            After 5 minutes of walking through the woods, Stiles caught sight of a house that looked like it was left on the barbeque too long, and the big bad wolf would have no problem blowing it down. Stiles chuckled nervously to himself, could he make big bad wolf jokes? Probably not, especially if Derek was going to try to kill him.

            Oh God, Derek could kill him. I mean, technically he could have before, what with his gun and being a Deputy. His Dad always said he knew how to make a murder look like an accident after working on the squad for so long, Derek had probably picked up a lot of those tricks already. And he had a wolf—how did he have a wolf? A part of Stiles wanted to know so he could get one too, but he tried his best to ignore that part (but every time he glanced back at “Laura,” she wagged her tail and wiggled a bit, how could you resist the cuteness of wolves?). But back to the killing thing, if Derek was really the serial killer—and honestly, who else near Beacon Hills could be strategic with killings and also owned a wolf that they could control? —then Stiles needed to figure out how to escape.

            Derek turned around, accompanied by the sound of heavy, fast breathing. Oh wait, that was Stiles. “I’m not the serial killer, Stiles.”

            Stiles rolled his eyes, muttering, “Yeah no, there are tons of people with experience with killers and murder strategies who also own freaking tame wolves. Totally believable.”

            Derek rolled his eyes, having obviously heard Stiles’ grumbling and starting walking up the porch steps. Stiles balked at this, not sure he really wanted to go into a decrepit old house with a potential serial killer and his pet wolf.

            “It only looks bad on the outside. We have running water and everything inside!” A female voice chirped from behind him.

            Stiles spun around to find a tall woman with dark black hair, and a decidedly tribal-looking necklace around her neck. That was about all that she had on her though, and Stiles pointedly looked towards the tree line once he noticed her less-than-clothed state.

            “Put some damn clothes on Laura!” Derek yelled from inside the house. Laura smirked and sped past Stiles faster than anyone should be able to move.

            Stiles was stock-still for a minute, processing. A woman appeared naked, and the adorable wolf had seemingly disappeared. Derek called both of them “Laura,” and as far as Stiles could tell, he was certifiably insane.

            Numbly, Stiles trudged up the steps that he hardly believed were still in one piece, much less weight bearing, and into the house. Surprisingly enough, Laura was right. Inside the crispy shell, was a functional house. They had nice, non-burnt wood floors, a modern-looking kitchen, an absurdly large TV sitting in front of what looked like the world’s most comfortable couch, right near the world’s most uncomfortable deputy.

            “So, Laura is your…?” Stiles decided to start easy. Sort out who the hell the naked woman was before they got into the whole, “where did the wolf go because it was adorable and now I really want a wolf, but actually this is serious” conversation.

            “Sister.” He said with a slight grimace when a yell from upstairs (how did the burnt shell hold up a second floor?) called out, “big sister,” earning a grimace from Derek.

            Stiles nodded slowly, still unimpressed at Derek’s lack of verbal communication. The older man sighed and motioned to the couch, as he went to sit in one of the nearby chairs. Stiles shook his head defiantly, “No sir, I am not sitting on a couch until you explain to me what is happening.”

            Laura walked down the stairs with a carefree laugh, something Stiles noted against her for being serial killer-esque. “You’d better just spill the beans, baby bro. He’s a persistent one.”

            Stiles rolled his eyes in a _I’m still here_ way. He did glance back to Derek, who looked absolutely wrecked from where he was leaning against the wall.

            “Ok first things first, I am not a serial killer, neither is Laura here. I swear neither of us is going to hurt you,” Stiles opened his mouth to make a comment about the teeth indents in his hand, “no, the wolf isn’t going to hurt you either.”

            “You may not believe me, but… you know the wolf that was following you earlier? My big sister Laura, and the wolf Laura, that’s the same person.”

            Stiles leaned against the back of the couch, not making eye contact with the siblings. “So… werewolf.”

            There was no question in his tone, no surprise, just matter-of-fact. The siblings nodded, Laura smirking and Derek wary.

            “Derek are you—“ Derek nodded, and Stiles nodded back in confirmation.

            A minute passed in silence, Stiles bobbing his head occasionally, but never saying anything, until, “So is it hereditary?”

            “Yes, but not all children can get it.” Laura supplied, sitting down on the couch.

            “OK, so it’s a gene. Dominant or recessive, do you know?” Stiles asked, taking a seat next to Laura, while Derek stayed next to him against the wall.

            “It’s dominant.” Laura confirmed, a smile creeping up on her face.

            “So, you can’t become a werewolf through a bite? Is that all lore?”

            Derek shook his head, “No, The Bite still turns you, but it’s also hereditary. Two ways to similar means.” That piqued Stiles’ interest.

            “What do you mean similar? Is the result different? Are there two different kinds of werewolves?” Derek breathed out what almost sounded like a laugh, and his mouth quirked up ever so slightly.

            “Born werewolves have blue eyes, while bitten werewolves have golden eyes. Alphas have red eyes, though. Do you know anything about the differences between Alphas, Betas, and Omegas?” Stiles nodded proudly.

            “Yeah, I’m doing my Honors Thesis on werewolf lore. Speaking of, Laura, you wouldn’t happen to be the Laura Hale who works as a mythology professor at NYU, would you?”

            Laura beamed, “That’s me! How come?”

            “Professor Alberic recommended I contact you for an interview this summer. Well this makes things slightly easier.” Stiles paused, “Wait, so if you two aren’t the cause of the murders, who is?”

            Derek and Laura shared a look, before explaining how Peter Hale had escaped the fire too, and they believed that he was the one causing all of these problems. Laura said he had likely become a rogue Omega after being kicked out of Laura’s miniscule pack for killing the first victim. Derek explained that when he first moved to Beacon Hills, he wasn’t sure Peter was still around, but he started finding the bodies that came through the department had animal bites, an Omega trying to build a pack. Without being an Alpha, Peter couldn’t turn anyone, and would be stuck an Omega. Laura had come down to visit Derek and help him sort out the situation, when they found two dying students behind a dumpster with bite marks on their necks. Laura bit them, effectively transforming them, explaining the camaraderie between Erica, Boyd, and Derek.

            “OK to clarify: You and Laura are born werewolves, Laura is the Alpha. She bit Erica and Boyd from the station because they were attacked by Uncle Peter, the lonely bitchy wolf, and were going to die without her bite.” Both nodded with pleased looks.

            “So why haven’t you just caught Peter already? I know how much trouble it’s causing you at the station Derek, and I’d rather my Dad stop dealing with a crazed werewolf.”

            “We can’t. He has been impossible to track, and even worse to catch. He lashes out and even though I do more damage than Derek,” Stiles smirked at the Deputy at that, “I still can’t off-handedly wound him. It would be safer to bring him back into the pack, but we have to talk to be able to do that.” Laura kept trying really hard to ignore the looks that Derek kept shooting Stiles, but honestly, now that Stiles was in the know, she was no longer needed in the room.

            “OK well, that was fun, but I’m bored and I’m going for a run. Adios, kiddies!” Laura shifted back into the adorable wolf (“No Stiles, you cannot hug me as a wolf.”) and ran out the door, leaving her clothes in a pile by the couch.

            “Can you—“

            “No.”

            Stiles pouted, really wanting to pet wolf Derek’s head.

            Derek scooped up the clothes and tossed them in one of the chairs in the room, awkwardly not speaking to Stiles.

            “Look, Stiles I know you want to help, but you’re human. You’re breakable and I can’t risk that, especially with your dad being my boss.” Derek gave him a look, begging him to understand.

            “No.” Oh, Stiles understood all right, but he was not about to let his father risk his life while he just sat at home and played video games, or worked at Café Luna. Derek didn’t seem to quite get this, so Stiles started rambling about all the reasons he was qualified to help Derek.

            “…And besides that, I’m studying werewolves in school and all sorts of other mythology! I could translate circles around you! Hell, I could even translate Gallifreyan circular language before you could translate even a piece of the Ancient Latin I can translate!” Oh. Stiles had gotten defensive rather quickly.

            “Shut up, Stiles.” Derek grumbled, not wanting to wolf out on the boy and freak him out.

            “Make me!” Stiles huffed back, resorting to petulance.

            Derek’s eyes flicked down to Stiles’ lips for a split second, but Stiles caught it. His breathing got shorter, but Derek refused to look him in the eyes again.

            “I can hear your heart pounding, calm down Stiles.” He said, resembling the calm deputy Stiles had gotten somewhat used to.

            Stiles nodded, before looking back up excitedly. “Wait was that figurative or can you actually hear my heart?”

            Derek rolled his eyes and tried to keep his lip from curving too far upward, “Actually.”

            Stiles beamed and started spewing off a list of questions, trying to get a picture of Derek’s hearing limits. They spent the next hour detailing all of the little werewolf quirks that Stiles could siphon out of the Deputy, before Stiles looked outside and noticed the dark sky.

            “Shit! My dad is going to murder me in worse ways than your Uncle Peter could. I left a note saying I went running, but that was a few hours ago and—“ Derek cut the boy off by dragging him out of the house, his car keys in hand. He beeped the Camaro, making the lights flash, and causing Stiles to emit a small squeak of glee.

            “Is this _your_ car?!” He slid inside and looked like he had melted into the leather seats.

            Derek chuckled as he slid into the driver’s seat, “Yes, though Laura held it captive for the past few years in New York so she could impress her boyfriend.”

            Stiles shot him a weird look at the quip, but was easily distracted when he noticed the lights that ran throughout the car. He started to finally settle down when Derek pulled up in front of Stiles’ house.

            “I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” Derek said, as Stiles reluctantly opened the car door.

            Stiles was caught off-guard, but smiled a bit, “Yeah, I’ll have the 12 cups of coffee ready for you.”

            “Oh, you don’t need a ride in the morning?” Derek’s tone was oddly even, no sense of sass or disappointment or relief, so Stiles wasn’t exactly sure how to respond.

            “Oh, uh, yeah, actually I do, but I was just going to ask my Dad.” Stiles stumbled, as he stood outside the car.

            “When he doesn’t have to be at the station until noon tomorrow?” Derek asked as innocently as possible. Stiles finally relented and said his thank yous before jogging into his house.

 

            His Dad turned around from his comfortable spot on the couch where he was watching a game.

            “Look who decided to come home.” Stiles rubbed his neck sheepishly and said he got really into his run.

            “Uh-huh. I must have missed a memo because last time I checked, a run meant with your feet, not Derek’s Camaro.” John’s smirk was almost as big as Stiles’ eyes. He spluttered for a bit before trudging upstairs to bemoan his strange life.

            The Sheriff didn’t pay much attention to his game after that, having just then decided to keep Stiles’ Jeep with Forensics for an extra week. The boys were getting there, but they were being too damn slow and oblivious. John sighed as he leaned back into the couch, before calling the Hale house.

            “Hi Laura, this is Sheriff Stilinski, Stiles’ father. I think we need to have a long overdue talk about our boys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So about that whole updating sooner thing.... I blame Disneyland.
> 
> Feel free to drop by [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) and remind me to write or ask questions anytime!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mythical Creatures That Aren’t Actually Mythical:  
> 1\. Werewolves  
> 2\. Vampires?  
> 3\. Witches?  
> 4\. Unicorns?  
> 5\. Bigfoot?

“Hi Laura, this is Sheriff Stilinski, Stiles’ father. I think we need to have a long overdue talk about our boys.” Laura smirked on the other end of the line, glad she had asked Derek to pick up food from the grocery store and was out of hearing range.

            “Sheriff, I believe you’re right.” She slid onto one of the bar stools in their kitchen, spinning an apple around with her claws.

            “I don’t know how caught up you are, as Derek told me you just arrived into town last night…” Laura grinned, poking two holes in the apple.

            “Oh don’t worry, I suckered out all the information I could out of my baby bro. He’s head over heels for your son, in case you weren’t aware?” Laura nearly giggled at how lovesick her brother was. It was a nice change from… from before.

            The Sheriff chuckled a bit on the other end of the line, “Yeah well apparently feelings are pretty mutual between the two. Issue is, both boys are blind as hell, and I can only keep Stiles’ Jeep with Forensics for so long.”

            Laura beamed as she drew a sideways C on the apple, completing the smiley face. With the way this conversation was going, she was going to get along well with Sheriff Stilinski.

            “Well, I will make sure Derek gets me coffee after work then. I could also coordinate shopping trip times?” The Sheriff huffed on the other end.

            “Whatever it takes. Stiles needs to catch a break, and I’d rather seen him with Derek than some random from school.”

            Laura’s smile slid into a grimace, knowing exactly where the man was coming from. As fun as the matchmaking was, she just wanted Derek to have something wonderful in his life, someone to help with all the bad, from before and in the future. God only knows what Derek would have been like if he had been left on his own. Laura shivers imagining the depths of Derek’s depression had she not been there to talk him through it after coming back to Beacon Hills.

            “I’m right there with you, Sheriff. Let me know what all I can do for the idiots?”

            She could hear the sounds of the Sheriff nodding against the phone before he spoke, “Yeah. And Laura? Do me a favor and watch out for Derek, all right? The boy’s been… I’ve taken him in?” He sighed, “I care about him as if he were my son. I know he’s got demons that he’s fighting that seem to be beyond what I can help with… just make sure he takes care of himself?”

            Laura ignored the slightly watery eyes she now had to look through, and mumbled something in agreement before she hung up. She leaves her baby brother for a few short years and he finds a home. She was laughing happily to herself when Derek walked in the door with more groceries than they could eat.

            “Laura?” Derek asked with a confused expression as he kicked the door open since his hands were full with groceries.

            His sister grinned over at him and happily asked for homemade pizza for dinner before all but skipping upstairs. Derek seemed a bit panicked at seeing his sister so downright gleeful, but he couldn’t really deny her any happiness. Though, upon seeing the apple with a terrifying face carved into it, he wasn’t sure he should deny her _anything_.

            “My sister is a psycho.” Derek mumbled grudgingly.

            “I heard that!” Laura yelled from her room.

 

* * *

 

            “Morning, Derek!” Stiles grinned when the Deputy walked into the Café the next morning.

            Derek’s eyebrows shot up and he looked around a bit before making eye contact with Stiles. “You’re not being weird.” Derek seemed confused, which only made Stiles laugh.

            “Am I supposed to be?” Stiles gave him a look as he pulled out the 12 cups to fill with coffee.

            “Ah- just 11 cups today. And a Mocha Cappuccino.” Derek said, pulling money out of his wallet. “And no, you’re not supposed to be acting weird, I just figured…”

            Stiles was trying really hard to bite back the flush that usually accompanied his talks with Derek (“Hello, Tall, Dark, and Handsome Deputy wants to talk to me? Totally reasonable to blush, Scott.”).

            “I’m oddly fine with the whole thing Derek. It makes things make more sense, honestly… and it’s nice that I can be trusted with the whole thing.” Stiles broke the eye contact in favor of making Derek’s Mocha Cappuccino.

            “Well, you found Laura in the woods, and I’d rather you didn’t accuse me of murder, or serial murders, so telling you was the best option.” Derek deadpanned.

            “You could have lied to me.” Stiles said quietly.

            Derek opened his mouth to reply, when Scott backed out of the door leading from the kitchen. He was balancing a tray of pastries and sandwiches to put in the display case. Stiles nodded his head at Scott while he filled the 11 coffee cups for Deputy Hale. As Scott unloaded the sandwiches and pastries into the case, he looked up and swore he could _see_ the tension between the two men.

            “So Stiles, is this the dude?” Scott asked, eyes focused on the macarons he was loading into the display case. He heard Stiles choke on his own spit, and a glance away from the delicate desserts showed the Deputy was looking at him too.

            “Dude.” Stiles hissed, as he snapped lids on the last coffee cups he was piling up on the counter in front of the Deputy. Scott beamed at him, while he continued to load the food he had just made.

            “Hey, could I try that sandwich with the basil and turkey?” Deputy Hale asked, trying to diffuse some tension in the Café. Scott beamed, and slid one across the counter towards Scott.

            “Yeah, it’s the Stiles Sandwich, he came up with the combination.” Scott hastily slid the rest of the food onto the shelf haphazardly so he could bail to the kitchen.

            Stiles sighed, “That awkward idiot, is my best friend Scott McCall, if you haven’t had the misfortune to meet him yet.”

            Derek smiled a bit, “I’ve seen him around.”

            Stiles flailed, of course Derek had seen him, he’d been around for a few years, which made sense. Just because Stiles was always too busy on his breaks to come back, didn’t mean Scott was. He found himself in the familiar position of wanting to smack himself in the face.

            “It’s good to put a name to the face, though.” Derek offered reassuringly. He slid the cup holders out of the barista’s hands, letting his hands rest over Stiles’ for just a bit longer than truly necessary. “Thank you, Stiles.”

            Stiles nodded numbly as Derek walked out of the café. Shit, he had it bad. He couldn’t even speak because their hands touched.

            “Oh god, I reverted to a high schooler.” Stiles held out a hand with a horrified look. Lydia’s head popped out from behind her door, “I hope this doesn’t mean you’re in love with me again.”

            Stiles shook his head distractedly at her, only leaving his inner freak-out to greet customers as they walked in. Scott walked out around an hour later to fix the display case he hadn’t really filled well, only to receive a glare from Stiles.

            “Oh come on Stiles. You can’t be mad at me for that! You were practically turning into a tomato, I technically saved you!”

            “What? You would have killed me if I pulled that with you and Allison! Actually, you left a bruise when I did that.” Stiles shot him a meaningful look, eyebrows and all.

            “You know, your eyebrows aren’t as effective as Deputy Hale’s.” Scott waggled his eyebrows at Stiles, before dashing back into the kitchen when Stiles threw a day-old bagel at his face.

* * *

 

            Stiles had a relatively normal day at work.

            He made a few over-complicated drinks (Why you need 2 and a _half_ pumps of a light syrup is beyond him), and thought about werewolves. He harassed Scott in the kitchen until he made him a custom sandwich, and freaked out about werewolves in his head. He drove home and paced his floor because werewolves, man!

            Once he was home, he tried really hard not to freak out. He finally gave in, telling himself he wouldn’t be able to once his dad was home.

            “Werewolves are real!” Stiles ended up yelling, giggling to himself and doing a dorky little dance around his room, subsequently knocking a few books off the top of his bookshelf. Once he finished shaking all the excitement out of his limbs, he clattered down into his desk chair and typed out a quick list of stuff he now knew from Derek. It was brief, but he didn’t know what kind of info he could cross-reference with lore to make his thesis more realistic. After completing that list, he made a new one, purely out of curiosity.

 

            Mythical Creatures That Aren’t Actually Mythical:

  1. Werewolves
  2. Vampires?
  3. Witches?
  4. Unicorns?
  5. ~~Dragons?~~ Bigfoot?



 

“Why’d you cross out dragons?” Stiles jerked at the sudden noise, slamming his hands against the desk, causing an immediate sting.

            “What the hell, Laura? How did you even get in here?” Stiles looked around, glancing at the open window with an incredulous look.

            “No, I did not crawl through your damn window, you idiot. You left the front door unlocked.” Laura rolled her eyes with a smug look.

            “Totally possible with werewolves.” Stiles mumbled, “Hey wait, what did you mean when you asked why I crossed out dragons? Are dragons real?!” Stiles stood up form his chair in excitement.

            “Of course not, sit down.” Laura rolled her eyes and sat on the bed. “Goodness, it’s like having a little brother.”

            Stiles raised an eyebrow at the woman, and she waved her hand in his direction.

            “A real little brother, as in, not two years younger.” Stiles stuck his tongue out at the alpha, further proving her point.

            “I’m not sure about Bigfoot, but I know there are Unicorn preserves over in Europe. My boyfriend lived near some before he moved to America.” Laura offered.

            “Was your boyfriend a werewolf too?” Stiles asked absently, editing his list.

            “Nah, he was a vampire.” Laura groaned at the snort that escaped Stiles, “Yeah, yeah I know. Very Twilight of me, move on. Next question.”

            Stiles deleted the question mark, leaving one more thing on the list. “Witches?”

            Laura sighed, “Oh, they’re real. Your Professor Alberic? He was the witch who helped me adjust to New York City before he bailed back to this coast.”

            Stiles took a second to absorb this information—how many other people did he know who were secretly not-so-mythical creatures—before looking back at the alpha.

            “Are the guys really called witches too?” Laura seemed amused at his questions, but answered them seriously anyway.

            “No, they’re technical called warlocks, though Alberic is a little shit, so it’s fun to piss him off with it. Do _not_ ,” Laura’s eyes bulged for emphasis, “call Deaton that though, because that man pissed… Just, don’t go there.”

            Stiles sat up straighter, “Wait. Dr. Deaton, as in _the vet_ Deaton, is a witch—warlock, whatever?!”

            Laura nodded, eyes drifting towards the window. Stiles took longer to absorb this, but made a mental note to have a chat with Scott’s boss.

            “Wait, why are you actually here Laura?” Stiles backtracked, realizing she had just appeared for apparently no reason.

            “Oh Stiles, don’t you know? My dear baby bro wants to make sure our crazy Uncle Peter doesn’t come after you, so I’m on Stiles Duty.”

            Stiles turned around and gave her the most irritatedly confused look she had ever seen on anyone other than Derek. “Yup, nope, time for you to leave.”

            “You can’t tell me what to do, Stiles.” Laura laughed lightly.

            Stiles raised an eyebrow, “No, but I can ask Deaton how to hurt you, which I’m sure could be a great motivator.”

            That was when Laura saw John Stilinski’s influence in his son. Stiles wasn’t a fragile human to be protected. He was an ally. Laura’s wolf suggested The Bite. She agreed with her wolf that this man needed to be pack, but she was more interested in having him as a valuable human member of the pack. She cocked her head at Stiles, trying to puzzle him out.

            “Stiles, do you understand what pack means?”

            The hardened look on his face fell away at her question. He wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at, but he could give it his best shot.

            “It’s a family, right?” Laura nodded and sat down again on Stiles bed, this time patting the spot next to her.

            “Pack is a few things, though it’s harder to explain. It’s more of a physical pull between members, like between close friends. It’s usually comprised of at least one central family, and their offspring, plus their closest friends and allies. As you can imagine, not everyone is going to bond with just werewolves. Packs usually have a few human members, sometimes strong packs have a witch allied with or actually ensconced within the pack.” Laura paused, silently asking Stiles for questions.

            “So, does that mean you could have other not-so-mythical creatures as part of the pack?” Stiles asked, slowly absorbing the information Laura was giving him.

            “Like vampires or faeries?” Stiles nodded, though his eyes bulged at the fairy comment, “Yes, technically. Though it’s very rare, as different species are usually very firm on pure bloodlines, and some hybrids can be fatal to the offspring.”

            Stiles nodded along, not quite sure where she was going with this.

            “Stiles, do you want in?”

            What?

            “Huh?” Stiles asked, entirely confused by Laura’s question.

            She sighed and turned towards him, “Do you want to be part of the pack?”

            Stiles’ mouth hung open for a minute or so, “Can I? I don’t really want to be a werewolf, which is why, I’m assuming, you just explained the whole multi-species pack thing. But don’t I have to have a strong bond or whatever to be pack?”

            Laura gave him an exasperated look. “Honestly Stiles? You’re really going to ask me that question when you’re the only person in this town that Derek gets up early to talk to? He is a downright asshat in the mornings and it used to take 4 cups of coffee to bribe him out of bed before 9. Please tell me you aren’t as dense as my baby brother, Stiles. I _cannot_ handle two morons in one town.”

            With a click, Stiles’ mouth shut. Instead of responding directly, he asked, “What does it mean to be pack?”

            Laura smiled kindly, “You just told me, didn’t you? Family. Not just you and your dad.”

            Stiles twisted his hands back and forth in his lap before looking the alpha in her now red eyes. “If I join the pack, I would have to be able to tell my dad. I can’t lie to him, he doesn’t deserve that.”       

            Laura seems to almost scan him with the brilliantly red eyes, before nodding with a small, proud smile. “We can help you tell him, it will just be up to you to decide when, ok Stiles?”

            Stiles nodded, unsure if that meant he was officially pack or not. Weren’t there rituals or something official? He resolved to just ask Derek later, when he received a phone call from Lydia. He picked it up, motioned Laura to wait. When he hung up, he sighed quickly and turned to the (his?) alpha.

            “That was my boss, Lydia. I have to go in and help out at Café Luna, they lost Scott, and Allison is out looking for him, so they’re down two staff for the after school rush. Mind giving me a ride?” Laura nodded and walked downstairs with Stiles.

            As they walked outside and slid into the Camaro, Stiles asked how she got to drive Derek’s car.

            “He has to drive his Deputy car to work, doesn’t he? I just don’t want the Camaro to get lonely, is all.”

            Stiles shivered a bit, recognizing the startling similarities between Laura and Lydia. “So you… commandeered Derek’s baby.”

Laura grinned wolfishly (heh, Stiles chuckled inwardly) at him and drove off at illegal speeds to Café Luna.

Stiles rushed in with a thank you wave to Laura, and quickly slid behind the counter to help Jackson fill drink orders. He wasn’t as skilled as Allison, but hey, they had limited resources at the moment, so Stiles was the Café’s best available barista.

“You’re doing the foam wrong.” A smug voice said from the other side of the counter. Stiles looked up ready to spout an annoyed quip at the person, when he registered the face.

“Isaac? What’re you doing here?” Stiles rounded the counter to hug his close friend from school. They were both studying Classical History and Texts, and they had bonded over their strange major choices.

“I have some family in town and wanted to get away from my dad for a the summer, so I’m helping them out with their kids.” Stiles nodded and noticed the large line that was overflowing out the Café doors and the large stack of cups piling up.

“Actually Isaac, my man, want to do me a favor and help me out with these drink orders?” Isaac looked a little hesitant, but Lydia had overheard the conversation in her office.

“Hi pretty boy. Get your butt behind the counter and help or so help me you’re not getting coffee in this town again. Oh, and I’ll pay you.”

Isaac gave Stiles a slightly terrified look but followed Stiles behind the counter and took over at the milk frother.

“She’s terrifying.” Isaac mumbled as he poured foam into a cappuccino.

“She’s Lydia.” Stiles retorted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huzzah for slightly faster chapter posting! And Welcome to Season 3 of Teen Wolf where the fans are going to single-handedly keep Kleenex in business.
> 
> If you haven't noticed by now (I don't know why you would have), I edit the last chapter right before posting a new chapter, since I don't have a beta reader (let me know if you're interested, though?). Just a clue.
> 
> As always, come flail with me on [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) and I promise if you send me a prompt I will love you forever.
> 
> Thanks again for reading, I really appreciate all the support (and keep posting suggestions and ideas in the comments too! Love hearing where you guys want this to go!) <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Scott?” A stone fell through Stiles’ stomach, and his lungs seemed to seize up. This couldn’t be happening. That blood couldn’t be Scott’s. His best friend could not be just another body at the police station.

Stiles helped Isaac wipe the counters as Lydia flipped their sign to Closed. Jackson put away the last of the milk and whipped cream, before flicking off the lights.

“Any word yet from Allison?” Stiles asked for the billionth time that day. Lydia shook her head.

Stiles sighed, and told Lydia he would walk home when she forced Jackson to offer him and Isaac rides home. Isaac waved him off, and Stiles started the slow walk home. Downtown Beacon Hills was well-lit at night, unless you slid off into a random alley, but Stiles had his phone gripped firmly in one hand, and his pepper spray (“Dad, honestly I don’t think I will ever need pepper spray, and why is it pink?!”) in the other hand.

A sleek black Camaro pulled up alongside Stiles, and the tinted window rolled down to reveal Derek.

“You realize you look like a terrified, kicked puppy, right?” He tries to joke, though Stiles can hear the special brand of worry in Derek’s voice. Stiles must have been tired, as Derek seemed to sniff him and seemed almost offended by what he smelled.

“I just… long day.” Stiles says, nodding at Laura in the passenger’s seat. He would normally explain and chatter on about what went on in his day, but his worry over Scott’s whereabouts had him too far lost in his own head to ramble on.

Both werewolves picked up their heads, suddenly alert. The siblings then slid out of the car faster than Stiles could register. Derek pressed the car keys into Stiles’ palm, telling him to drive home.

“Like hell I’m driving home. What’s happening?” Stiles yelled, running after the two running up the street and suddenly turning in an alley. Laura was already crouched on the ground, and Derek turned back to shield Stiles from seeing the scene. Of course, Stiles was having none of that, and ducked his head under Derek’s (beautiful) arms.

“Scott?” A stone fell through Stiles’ stomach, and his lungs seemed to seize up. This couldn’t be happening. That blood couldn’t be Scott’s. His best friend could not be just another body at the police station. Derek gently pulled Stiles away, pulling his chin up so they were at eye level.

“Pull it together Stiles. You need to breathe for me, ok? Don’t have a panic attack just yet. Once we get home, you can freak out, but right now Scott needs you, he’s still alive. Laura is going to help him and he is going to live through this. I promise you that, Stiles.” Stiles’ heart rate had lowered significantly by the time Derek’s stern words sunk in, and he found his arms wrapped around the Deputy. He would definitely claim he had a temporary moment of insanity, should Derek be awkward around him after the hugging.

“Thank you.” Stiles swore Derek sighed in relief at his soft words, but Stiles isn’t an expert (yet) on how deeply Derek breathes, so he may have just been reading too far into it.

“Derek?” Derek gently detached himself from Stiles’ arms and sped to Laura’s side. Stiles couldn’t hear what was being said, but they were helping Scott up from the ground, and slowly walking him back to the car. Stiles scrambled ahead to open the door for Scott, and fretted over him the entire ride home. He spent the drive taking in the blood-stained, tattered clothes, the scarred skin that seemed less marked by the minute, and the shining golden eyes that flicked in his direction every time he opened his eyes.

“Stiles, could you cover for Scott so we can keep him at our house overnight and explain everything to him?” Stiles nodded, not registering who exactly had asked.

 

* * *

 

A heavy hand shook him awake a while later, though it seemed like a few minutes to Stiles. Derek gave him a tight smile before helping the tired boy out of the car and into the house.

“Dad’s on night shift.” Stiles mumbled in explanation to Derek, though he hadn’t asked a question. The werewolf just nodded, before following Stiles upstairs.

Stiles flipped the light switch in his room and flopped face-first onto his bed. He heard the squeak of his desk chair as Derek sat down, and mumbled into the mattress, “You don’t have to stay.”

Derek snorted, “I know.”

Stiles rolled over, eyes roaming across his ceiling, “You sound like Han Solo when you say that, you know. I love watching Star Wars, but Scott always seems to ruin it by saying how much he hates Jar Jar! Who doesn’t like Jar Jar?”

Derek gave him a look and said with a small smile, “Everyone. You’re the weird one, Stiles.”

“Yeah but Scott and I are like---“ Stiles cut himself off, a cold sheet of panic washed over him in a second. “Shit, Derek. Scott’s dying, and there’s nothing I can do for him.”

Suddenly Derek was on the bed, sitting in front of Stiles, trying everything to calm him down, lower his heart rate, anything. With a sigh, Derek realized he was about to give up the last shred of dignity he had held onto with this kid as he moved lithely behind Stiles, gathered him up and pulled him into his chest.

“Listen to my breaths and mimic them, you moron. One teen in a medical crisis is enough for the night. I need you to calm down, Stiles.”

Stiles’ heart rate slowed ever so slightly, but his long shaky breaths seemed to throw him back into the depths of the panic attack. Derek took a deep, exasperated breath, and decided he needed to put the boy’s brain elsewhere.

“What’s your real name?”

Stiles looked up at Derek with wide, confused eyes.

“Oh don’t go silent on me now, that’s my job. Stiles Stilinski can’t be your real name, I know your dad isn’t that cruel. Besides, when you were born, he didn’t even know how much of a handful and weirdo you were going to be, so he couldn’t have preemptively punished you.” Stiles’ heart was already calming a bit.

“Why do you care?” Stiles croaked, throat tight from stress.

Derek looked down at him, eyebrow pulled together. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Stiles actually smiled then and took a deep calming breath, pulling himself out of the downward spiral. He wasn’t quite calm yet, but Derek could at least relax now.

“Genim.” Stiles muttered quietly enough that he only heard it clearly because of his enhanced hearing.

“That’s hardly better than Stiles!” Derek smiled over at him, trying his best to make conversation.

            Stiles cracked a smile, “Well at least I don’t have a common name like Derek. Anyone could be a Derek, you could have gone to school with a bunch of other Dereks. I’m sure I had at least 3 Dereks in my graduating class. Mine is special.”

            “You’re special all right.” Derek hummed, thoroughly enjoying the offended look on Stiles’ face.

            “You are special, however you choose to take that. Now please, try to sleep some, ok?” Derek assured him, walking over to open his bedroom window.

            Stiles nodded, sleep seeping into his face.

            “Night, Genim.” Derek added quietly, almost gruff, as if he were embarrassed. Stiles rolled his eyes, if anyone had to be embarrassed, it would be him. Derek slid quietly out the window and drove home to help the new werewolf.

 

* * *

            

            “Stiles!” The boy bolted up in his bed to find his dad giving him an amused look from the doorway. “Aren’t you supposed to opening Café Luna in 10 minutes?”

            With a groan, Stiles raced around his room, barely remembering the basics. He grabbed the Adderall his dad was holding out for him as he raced past him to the bathroom.

            The Sheriff rolled his eyes when Stiles’ phone started ringing. He moved to the nightstand to pick it up, grinning a bit at the caller ID.

            “Morning Derek. What did Stiles do this time?”

            “Morning John, did you just get back from your night shift? Stiles is late, just tell him I’m waiting outside for him, please.” Derek replied pleasantly.

            “I did, though I didn’t think you had a morning shift today.” The Sheriff smiled a bit. Had Derek woken up early just to give Stiles a ride to work?

            “Err… I don’t, but I know Stiles’ car is still with Forensics and I figured you would rather not go right back out after your shift ended…” Derek seemed a bit embarrassed, and the Sheriff’s heart swelled up a bit.

            “I really appreciate your thoughtfulness, Derek, don’t sweat it. Stiles is heading out now.” The Sheriff smiled, tossing the phone at Stiles as he scrambled out of the house.

            Stiles slid into the car, hair sticking in twelve different directions.

            “You are a god!” Stiles praised, as he buckled his seatbelt and Derek pulled away from the curb. He drove slightly faster than he probably should have, but Stiles was only 5 minutes late to Café Luna, so he jumped out of the Camaro, yelling at Derek that he owed him a Mocha Cappuccino as he unlocked the front door of Café Luna.

            Stiles was arranging the drink things in the fridge, and was panicking silently over Scott when Lydia walked in. “Stiles?”

            He stuck a hand up from beneath the counter in an awkward wave.

            She sighed audibly, “That Isaac kid worked really well with everyone yesterday, so I’m thinking of hiring him… I’m cautious about hiring someone I don’t know well, so,” she leaned on the counter, peering at Stiles, “what do you think?”

            Stiles snorted a bit and stood off the ground, “High school me would be freaking out right now.” He ruffled his hair a bit, “Isaac is great. He’s a bit like a human puppy, but he works really hard. I obviously like him, I mean, I’m rooming with him again next year.” Lydia smiled and walked off to her office with a satisfied sway.

            “Nice talk!” Stiles waved and rolled his eyes fondly. His head turned to greet the customers walking through the door, only to see Scott flanked by Deputies Erica and Boyd.

            “Scott.” Stiles, walked around the counter to try to help him, but Erica and Boyd gave him a cautious look. “Oh, back off guard dogs, I was there when they found him.”

            “Are you sure you should be here, dude?” Scott looked at Stiles with a reassuring smile.

            “Stiles, man, I actually feel pretty good now. I mean, considering I was almost dead last night, I feel… good.” Stiles pointedly ignored the two smug-looking deputy-werewolves, and scooted Scott back into the kitchen, making sure he would say something if he needed Stiles to cover for him.

            Erica and Boyd ordered the coffees for the station, assuring Stiles that Scott was fine, as long as he didn’t get into any fights or get overly emotional. Stiles nodded, mentally noting that he should check if Allison was due into work today. If Scott needed to avoid an overwhelming of the emotional circuits, Allison would need to be avoided. After the deputies left with their drinks and Stiles made a few lattes, he slipped into the office.

            “Hey Lydia. Scott’s back, but I think he needs time to rest…” Lydia was staring him down with an expectant look, “So, I was thinking instead of Allison coming in today, Isaac could come in and learn the ropes?”

            Lydia stared him down for a few moments, forcing Stiles to squirm a bit from his spot by the door. “Fine.” She relented, flipping her hair, spinning back to her computer. Stiles walked back out to the counter and helped Greenburg figure out what kind of coffee he wanted (who takes 10 minutes to pick a roast?).

            Isaac wandered in bleary-eyed a few hours later. Stiles smiles at him apologetically, and they hold up a conversation about why lore was more interesting in original translations, which got Stiles thinking. He vaguely remembered babbling to Derek about his love of werewolves and their lore earlier in the summer, and Isaac nearly scalded his hand at Stiles’ random tomato impression during the lunch rush. Scott popped his head out at the commotion, and had to step back into the kitchen because he was giggling too hard. He knew the reason behind it too, only serving to extend the giggle fit he had. Thankfully no sandwiches were harmed in the making of the Scott’s glee.

            Stiles had just reigned in the blush, and managed to calm down Isaac—Scott was still giggling a bit in the back if you listened carefully—when Derek walked into Café Luna. Stiles sucked in a breath sharply, and subsequently watched Derek’s mouth quirk up into a smirk.

            “Hi Mr. Smarmy. Mocha Cappuccino?” Apparently the smirk had flipped his snark switch.

            “Aren’t you supposed to be pleasant?” Derek’s smirk was still firmly in place though, so Stiles just gave him sarcastic eyebrows.

            “You didn’t give me an order, Derek.” Stiles replied with a put-upon sigh.

            “Have lunch with me.”

            Stiles frowned down at the cash register, before looking up at the oddly relaxed deputy.

            “I—that’s not a drink.” Derek sighed and looked upward in exasperation.

            “Two sandwiches and two drinks, you choose.” Derek left $20 on the counter and walked over to Stiles’ favorite table, slightly set back in the restaurant with two large plush chairs, and a dark table in between.

            Stiles stood by the cash register for a few minutes before Isaac came up behind him.

            “Stiles, if you don’t get your ass over there and flirt the hell out of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Flirty, I will make you live by yourself. Also, I don’t want to hear the complaints all next year if you let this slip past you.” He pushed him away from the register and made shooing motions at him after handing him two drinks and sandwiches on a tray. Stiles stumbled dazedly over to Derek, setting the tray down before sitting cross-legged in his plush chair.

            “Which drink is mine?” Derek asked curiously, but Stiles just wrinkled his forehead. He shrugged and looked over at Isaac, who just held up the cup he was writing on. Stiles nodded and moved the cup cozies to read the names, _Hello Handsome_ , and _Moron_. Derek chuckled a bit before picking up the _Hello Handsome_ cup, and sliding a sandwich closer to him. Stiles begrudgingly grabbed the other cup, and stared up at Derek.

            “How’s Scott holding up?” Stiles breathed in, this made more sense. Derek didn’t want to eat with him, he just wanted to discuss the Scott situation in relative privacy.

            “Good, I had Isaac switch shifts with Allison, Scott’s girlfriend, so he wouldn’t have a emotional overload.” Derek nodded a bit, as he sipped his drink.

            “Allison… the Argent girl, right?” Stiles gave him a bit of a weird look, but nodded. Allison had moved into town during their sophomore year in high school, but beyond her general ability to be badass in every situation ever, he didn’t really know much about her. He would ask Laura about Derek’s interest in her surname later.

            Derek ate his sandwich while Stiles asked him some questions quietly, and Derek gave short answers on how Scott would function from now on. After a few minutes, he just summed it up by saying, “We’re brothers now, essentially. That’s the oversimplified version, but you get the idea.” Stiles nodded with a small amused smile.

            “Isaac… did he leave his pack, or is his family dead?” Derek asked, after a few minutes of glancing over at the counter.

            Stiles nearly choked on the sandwich. “I’m sorry, what?”

            “Isaac, the barista, right?” Derek turned to Stiles, “He’s an Omega.”

            Stiles was about to say something about the lack of human friends, when he looked up to see Isaac standing next to the table.

            “Hey Stiles, want to cover for me?” He asked politely, but fully focused on Derek. Stiles nodded and wandered behind the counter, distractedly filling coffee orders—he may have accidentally given someone a latte instead of a cappuccino, but they didn’t say anything so Stiles just pretended that it didn’t happen. He kept watching the interaction between the two werewolves, because that was his life now, and only saw Derek’s eyes flash bright blue once. Isaac came back behind the counter with a genuine smile, and Derek pointedly held up his phone at Stiles as he walked out, since he had a long line of customers. After all of their orders were taken and Isaac was making their drinks, Stiles leaned against the counter and checked his phone.

 

_I’ll pick you up when you’re done. 4pm today?_

            Yes please.

_Oh. Isaac is in our pack now._

Our?

 

            Stiles never got a response to that, though, so he wasn’t focused at all that day. Thankfully Lydia was busy with taxes or something equally boring in her office, so she really didn’t hear about Stiles messing up cappuccinos unless Isaac decided to throw him under the bus. Scott clocked out early, and waved on his way out. He called something about going to the Hale house, to which Isaac nodded as if it was the routine.

            _What is my life becoming?_ Stiles wondered as he repeatedly banged his head against the raised pastry case.

 

* * *

 

Derek was waiting on the street when Stiles finished his shift, though Isaac said he would see him after his shift finished if Stiles was still at the Hale house. Stiles slid into the beautiful Camaro, barely waiting for Derek to close his door before bombarding him with questions.

“Why is everyone talking about your house like it’s the usual hangout? What about Isaac? What’s the deal with his pack, our pack, whatever. Oh. And I was just confused how you knew that Laura had asked me to be pack. Is there like werewolf telepathy or something? Because that would be cool, and simultaneously unfair.” Stiles took a deep breath, only for Derek to slap a hand over his mouth.

“Pause!” He begged the boy. Stiles licked his hand in response. Derek quirked an eyebrow at him, a look that almost certainly promised retribution. The werewolf focused on the road.

“Scott is at my house. Do you want me to take you there or your house?” Derek asked at a crossroad stoplight.

“Your house, please. I think I’m missing some information.” Derek nodded, and turned left once the light turned green.

“Now for your questions,” Derek sighed and chuckled in the same breath, “Everyone is going to our house because it’s in the forest and out of the way, and the house of the Alpha is usually the meeting place for the pack.” Stiles nodded, so Derek continued.

“Isaac left his pack because his father was abusing him. Therefore he was an Omega, so I just asked him if he’d rather have a pack than risk the frenzied condition that usually comes with being an Omega. He agreed, so he’s officially in the pack once he talks to Laura this afternoon.” Stiles seemed to have picked up a few more questions after that explanation, but Derek soldiered on.

“No, werewolves do not have telepathy, but when Laura declares someone as pack, or in your case, you realize you’re a part of the pack, we can sense other pack members. Our pack gets stronger with more members, but Laura is rather hesitant to forcefully expand the pack.” Derek said, as the road turned to dirt as they got closer to the Hale house.

“So let me get this clear; Our pack consists of you, me, Laura, Erica, Boyd, Scott, and Isaac, right?” Derek nodded, a happy smile creeping up on his face.

“What did you mean when you said that I ‘realized’ I was in the pack?” Stiles asked, the decrepit house coming into view between the trees.

“Laura explained it to you, right?” Derek asked, nervous, though Stiles didn’t know why.

“Well, sort of. She didn’t say exactly why I had a strong connection into the pack. Oh! So that’s the other question I had that Laura didn’t quite explain, are there any rituals or formal declaration things to join the pack?” Derek shook his head.

“No, well I guess once Laura says it, it’s true so I guess you could call that a formal declaration, but once us werewolves can feel a new member in the pack, it’s official.” Stiles scrunches up his nose, a little dissatisfied at the loose ends for human pack members.

Derek parked the car in front of the house where Scott was sitting on the porch with Laura. Stiles slid out of the car and beamed at Scott.

“Sheesh, I know about werewolves for a few days, and you just go and become one. I guess you just really didn’t want me to keep any secrets in this relationship, huh?”

Scott rolled his eyes and waved Stiles over to join them, obviously more relaxed in his best friend’s presence. Before the sun fell, Boyd and Erica had picked up Isaac from Café Luna in Boyd’s deputy car and they were all sitting on the porch. There were things that needed to be discussed, but all had put them on the back burner in favor of simply hanging out. Even when Stiles had this group size in college, it hadn’t ever felt like this, like family. There was an underlying fondness in every conversation, joke, and insult and Stiles was actually happy. Derek nudged him with a knee as the sun was setting and whispered, “You’re overflowing happiness. It’s a bit overwhelming.”

When Stiles looked up at him though, he was only met by a small smile, so Stiles just beamed up at Derek. If hanging out with the pack was easy, enjoying his time with Derek was the easiest. No effort was involved, though Stiles overanalyzed everything as soon as Derek went off to talk with someone else.

There was talk of needing to get home, needing dinner and such, when leaves crunched along the tree line. All heads whipped towards the trees, where a tall older man walked confidently into the open space in front of the Hale house.

“Oh how cute, my niece and nephew put together a little pack for me to kill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still astounded by the response to this story! Thank you so much for the kudos, comments, and subscribes. You're all so kind and I keep writing these because of you all. 
> 
> As always, feel free to drop by [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) and let me know what you'd like to see in this story or in future stories!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It hit me like a wave. I saw him as a friend for years, but all of a sudden, his love crashed over me, and I realized I was crying. Your grandfather panicked when he walked into the entryway and saw me laughing through the tears. Your grandmother, my mother, had just been killed by a rogue alpha, and I was lost and your father’s love was a relief. If you ever, ever find yourself crying in relief from love, never let that person go. You found them.”

“Oh how cute, my niece and nephew put together a little pack for me to kill.”

Laura was off the porch and crouched in front of her betas in seconds. The deputies had wolfed out, while the rest of the little group stood defensively behind their pack. Derek had subtly placed himself between Stiles and the intruder.

“Come off it, Uncle Peter is just a mere beta, why get so worked up over little ‘ol me, little Laura?” Peter stalked forward, exuding confidence.

“It must have something to do with you trying to kill me and Derek after the fire.” Laura bared her intimidating canines at the man. He rolled his eyes and peered over at Derek.

“Derek, you’re looking good. Not as good as the little morsel you’re attempting to guard, but that’s not your fault. Blame your father, I was always the better looking son.” Derek snarled at him, eyes holding the electric blue color. Stiles wasn’t sure how to calm him but knew he needed help, so he clenched his eyes shut and shot his hand forward to rest gently between Derek’s shoulder blades. The muscles beneath his hand seemed to loosen at the touch, and Derek’s breathing slowed a bit.

“Why are you here, Peter?” Laura asked, drawing Peter’s eyes away from the boys.

Peter sighed and walked closer to the alpha. “I came to meet my pack. Since my alpha is finally back from New York, I figured I should check in.”

“What do you want?” growled Derek, poised to fight again, despite Stiles’ comforting touch.

“I’m not actually here to kill you, Derek.” Peter rolled his eyes again with a chiding tone and turned to Laura, “Just you.”

The entire pack tensed up and Isaac and Scott were off the porch and right behind Laura immediately. Erica and Boyd fanned out to connect Derek to the rest of the pack, leaving Stiles protectively behind the line of wolves.

Peter held up his hands complete with claws, “Relax, I just need to be an alpha so I won’t have to deal with this incessant buzzing in my head. It only shuts up when I try to transform someone, which obviously doesn’t work since I’m an Omega. Nice to see you three still breathing,” Peter nodded with a smile at Scott, Erica, and Boyd.

He was promptly met by angry growls.

“Just submit and join the pack, Peter. Same end, better means.” Laura seemed to grow, voice growing more powerful with the inflection of dominance.

“And be under my little niece who was frightened of being an Alpha for the first year? Not likely.” Peter crossed his arms, eyes flashing again.

“Peter, this is not you.” Laura tried, slight desperation slipping into her voice.

Peter crouched forward, features completely marred by his wolf, a silent challenge.

With a resigned sigh, Laura matched his position, shifting fully into her wolf form. Peter lunged toward the wolf, and Laura pressed herself against the ground, tripping up the werewolf. She ran away from the line of her pack, drawing the crazed Omega away from her charges. Minutes later, wolf Laura stood over Peter, enormous paws pressing down on his chest to force his submission. Peter huffed and tilted his neck, allowing Laura to nip at his neck. The fury and crazed look seemed to slide out of his eyes as Laura trotted back towards her pack. Derek held out his jacket for Laura as she shifted. The large leather jacket didn’t cover much, but Laura hardly seemed to care. Peter loped over to the pack, though Derek was no less tense this time around.

“So…if Peter is no longer a crazy serial killer, which I’m still not convinced of by the way, how are you going to explain the serial killer’s disappearance down at the station?” Stiles broke the silence in the woods.

Derek turned his head and had his mouth open to answer, when Peter spoke.

“You guys do know that I wasn’t the only Omega around, right?” The man had a seriously worried look on his face, which left Stiles a bit unnerved. Minutes ago the man had psychotically threatened all of his closest friends, and now he was worried about something serious enough to cause deep wrinkles on his forehead? Shit.

“Explain.” Laura stated, arms crossed. Guess she was with Derek on the trust issue.

“Omegas naturally gain the instinct to try to bite others to build a pack, but it never becomes as crazed as I had it. That only comes with a higher concentration of Omegas. Great neighborhood, Beacon Hills. I forgot how classy this place was.”

Stiles really wanted to hate Peter. He was creepy and definitely not to be trusted, but Stiles couldn’t entirely loathe someone as cheeky as Peter. Stiles hid behind sarcasm, and Peter was his sarcastic kin.

“So how many are there?” Stiles asked. Derek shot him a look that clearly said that he was not being _nearly_ wary enough of Peter.

“At last count, five. I don’t know where they came from though.” Peter made eye contact with Laura, who nodded and motioned everyone inside for the discussion.

The pack moved aside, letting Peter walk in front of them since no one trusted their backs to the elder werewolf.

“Look at you, trying to remodel.” Peter sassed as he took in the interior of the Hale house.

Derek rumbled out a warning growl, while Laura ran upstairs to put some clothes on. Peter rolled his head to one side and gave Derek an exasperated look.

“Oh calm down, no one stole your Nutella, Derek. I was just thinking if you two wanted to remodel the place, I could draw up some plans.” Derek’s jaw was set, but Peter shrugged before going to sit on the couch with the rest of the betas. “OK, just continue the ramshackle renovations, don’t listen to the licensed architect.”

Laura walked back downstairs and Stiles snorted at the desperate look Derek was shooting his older sister. She laughed and ruffled his hair, “Come on Derek, Peter has bullied you since you were three, this is nothing new.”

Peter held up his arms with a smirk, “What? I didn’t know a pup could be so attached to Nutella!”

OK, now Stiles _really_ needed to chat with Uncle Peter. He didn’t care so much for his company, but he wanted to figure out as much about Omegas as possible for his research, and also because baby Derek. Stiles also filed away the Nutella tidbit in his mental folder on Ways to Bribe Derek into dating him.

Derek grumbled, but settled onto the side of the couch closest to the chair Stiles was sitting in. Laura stood by the fireplace, and made sure all of the pack was settled before she focused on her uncle.

“Who are these Omegas?”

Peter described four of them as random werewolves, but he pointedly ignored the fifth Omega. Ever description started with “the four werewolves,” or some variation. He would occasionally mention what the five of them did, but never describe all five. It seemed Stiles wasn’t the only one who picked up Peter’s omissions. Laura interrupted him halfway through, asking for any description of the ignored werewolf, anything that could help them.

Peter sighed and looked up with a pained expression that Stiles never expected to show itself on his face.

“Cora.”

Peter glanced over at Derek, who was now frozen in his seat. Laura’s eyes flashed red, and the rest of the pack was on high alert. Eyes flew around the room trying to find answers until Stiles finally asked the million-dollar question.

“Who is Cora?”

Laura sighed and sat down on the coffee table facing the pack. “Derek?”

Derek’s face was hidden behind his two hands, but he rolled his head slightly to the side to show Stiles an look that was absolutely wrecked. “Our little sister.”

The silence was deafening. Derek finally looked up to find Peter’s eyes.

“How?”

Peter shook his head, but Laura spoke up. “She probably thought no one had survived, and we bailed immediately to New York because of a _certain_ someone. Her wolf must have made her jump to the conclusion that she was alone… but how has she been hidden for so long without us knowing?”

“Omegas wander, Laura. It’s not just a sense of pack that they long for, it’s a place of peace. They usually wander away from where they became an Omega, and Cora’s memories of Beacon Hills couldn’t have been peaceful.”

The pack grew more anxious with every passing minute, as each minute brought a new problem, a new obstacle. Peter slapped his hands against his knees and pushed up from the couch.

“Well, this was fun. Let me know when you need my database for research.”

The pack stayed still until Laura heard Peter leave her earshot.

“Well that was a fun pack welcome.” Laura joked, earning a huff or two of laughter. Derek seemed in a trance, eyes boring holes in the wooden floor. Stiles fidgeted for a few minutes while Scott asked Laura some basic questions, and Isaac tried to get a feel of his new pack.

“Can we save her?” Stiles asked suddenly. By the way Isaac’s mouth was half open and his eyes were darting around confusedly, Stiles had probably interrupted him mid-sentence. Oh well.

Laura sighed and glanced at her brother.

“Theoretically, yes. But it isn’t going to be as simple as with Peter. He’s cocky and thought he could beat me, so he approached the pack, making it simple.. ish… to get him to submit. If you challenge an alpha and lose, you submit. Cora and the others… they will be scared. A pack is a threat to Omegas, and Cora will be especially volatile due to her history with Beacon Hills. So they won’t just step forward to fight unless they are directly threatened.” Stiles nodded and stood up suddenly.

“Do you guys have paper? Maps of the preserve?” Laura raised an eyebrow at him, but directed him to a little office space tucked in the far corner of the house. Had circumstances been better, Stiles probably would have giggled a bit at the cute little home office, all organized and civil. Who seriously keeps a home office in a decrepit house populated by werewolves?

Stiles jogged over, grabbing everything he could find and dragging it over to the unnecessarily large dining table. He spread out the maps of the preserve and town, and placed a few pieces of blank paper over the map. The pack appeared by the table, while Stiles started sketching in large X’s where the victims were found.

“There’s no pattern in location.” Derek mumbled, suddenly intensely close to Stiles’ ear. Reigning in the urge to freak out, Stiles ignored the gentle brushing of their forearms and nodded. “And no pattern between the victims.”

“So there’s no pattern?” Isaac asked, moving some papers around, trying to place a shape between the killing locations.

“Well, no physical pattern. No personal relations between the victims, but we think there’s some mental pattern…” Erica mentioned, sliding into a chair across the table from Stiles. Boyd nodded and Stiles looked up at the deputies.

“What if the sites of these killings are the sites of bad memories? Maybe the werewolves are going back to sites of trauma…you know how they say the bad memories are what stick with you the most, so maybe they just remember the terrible things. If that’s the case, their brains may be scrambled from their Omegas states and they will kill because that’s all they remember of that place. If they happen upon the bad place in the woods, something is triggered in their brains, maybe?” He was encouraged by the nodding around the table, so he leaned over the map flattened against the table, “We can eliminate the killings that we know are Peter’s…” Laura erased two marks off the map before Stiles could finish the sentence.

“Are you thinking the Omegas are all from Beacon Hills?” Boyd asked, looking over at the sheriff’s son, who shook his head.

“No, the station would have noticed that many people missing… they could be from the area though? There are quite a few surrounding towns, maybe we can figure out who they are?” Stiles mused, already trying to recall his dad’s password into the Beacon Hills Security Database.

“But what about the locations? What happened there?” Isaac asked, trying to make sense of Stiles’ theory. Stiles chewed his thumbnail for a minute until Derek leaned one arm on his shoulder, pointing at one X.

“That’s where they used to do the Fourth of July picnics every year. People would come from towns over, just for the fireworks show over the lake. They stopped it when an entire family drowned in the lake during the show. That was a pretty public area and it would cause a scarring memory for anyone.” Derek looked up at the pack, subtly inhaling Stiles’ scent as much as possible. Stiles was breathing very carefully as well in an effort to keep Derek from realizing how close he was to Stiles and moving away too soon. So the timing wasn’t great, but hey, Stiles was all about taking advantage of opportunities presented to him.

Laura nodded and pulled out her laptop in the home office (Stiles snorted again), while Stiles pulled out his smartphone. The pack quickly pulled together a list of possible traumatic events that could have triggered bad memories for the Omegas to have killed there. Erica and Boyd had also pulled together a list of places that could be potential murder spots as well. Derek looked at Laura as everyone was starting to pack up.

“You guys shouldn’t come back here.”

Even Stiles spun around to face the Hales at that.

“Excuse me?”

Derek locked eyes with Stiles, shooting him a face too sad and shadowed for a young man.

“If Cora is following the Omega pattern and killing at places of traumatic memories, this house isn’t safe. It’s the only truly traumatic thing she had experienced.” Derek’s mouth was taut and Stiles just wanted to help the tired man relax and coax a grin out of the pained look.

“It’s a wonder it’s been safe this long.” Laura muttered as she crammed papers into a shoulder bag.

“Don’t say that! Don’t ruin our luck!” Scott yelled, a bit panicky. He slid into Boyd’s car, already texting Allison. Derek rolled his eyes at the boy, and waved off the rest of the pack.

Stiles stood in the doorway for a few minutes, making no noise except for his consistently shifting stance. Derek was packing papers and books into shoulder bags for Laura, while she ran upstairs a few times, bringing a duffel bag each time.

“Go home Stiles.” Derek said as he closed the last bag.

“Are you guys packing?” Derek looked up, eyes clearly reflecting his tired state.

“Yes. We can’t stay here, not with Cora potentially coming here with the sole memory of killing here.” Derek caught the protesting look on Stiles’ face and lowered his head down towards the boy.

“Don’t worry about it Stiles.” He sighed and yelled, “I’ll meet you there, Laura.”

He raised his eyebrows questioningly at Stiles, who followed after him into the Deputy car. The drive back to Stiles’ house was quiet and when Derek parked in front, he put his hand over Stiles’. Stiles sucked in a break, completely unsure where this was going, but entirely sure where he wanted it to go. Derek stared at him for a minute.

“Tell your Dad I’m going to explain tomorrow over lunch.” Derek finally said, though his face was watching Stiles, judging his reaction.

Stiles shook his head slowly, “You’re picking me up. I need to be there, ok?”

Derek nodded and his eyes flicked towards the house. “He’s waiting up for you. You’d better go.”

Stiles threw a worried look over his shoulder and gave Derek a small smile.

“Night, Derek. Than—“ Stile stopped himself, looked down at the sidewalk and tried again, “You’re going to get her back Derek. I’m going to help or die trying.” Stiles nodded and walked inside, only pausing to take a deep breath before walking through the front door.

Derek didn’t pull away from the curb for at least 10 minutes, nearly in tears. The look in Stiles’ eyes and his rash yet touching statement had sparked something in Derek. Whenever he asked his mom how she knew she was in love with his father, she would smile at him and lean up against him with a glazed look in her eyes.

“It hit me like a wave. I saw him as a friend for years, but all of a sudden, his love crashed over me, and I realized I was crying. Your grandfather panicked when he walked into the entryway and saw me laughing through the tears. Your grandmother, my mother, had just been killed by a rogue alpha, and I was lost and your father’s love was a relief. If you ever, ever find yourself crying in relief from love, never let that person go. You found them.”

When Derek finally composed himself enough to drive, he turned the deputy car towards downtown to meet Laura at the new loft. The relief that had crashed over him would have to wait until after they saved the Omegas.

 

* * *

 

When Stiles slid into Derek’s car the next morning, the dark rings beneath his eyes were clearly noticeable.

“What, no beauty sleep?” Derek smiled softly at the bleary look he received.

“Hush your face before I make Isaac do it for me. Or Scott. Or Laura. Actually, hush before I make your pack turn on you. I had nightmares, shoot me.”

Stiles swore he saw a flicker of worry pass across the deputy’s face before it settled into a small smirk that mocked Stiles the entire drive. As he slid out of the car, Stiles yawned widely, calling, “I’ll have the coffee ready for you when you come in.”

Stiles unlocked Café Luna and was filling cups with dark roast coffee when the bell of the door rang. He looked up, ready to talk with Derek, only to find Peter walking through the door instead.

            “Uh, Peter? Hi, what can I get you?” He abandoned the remaining few cups, but glanced towards the kitchen with a hopeful glance. Maybe Scott had snuck in the back when he wasn’t paying attention.

            “Cut the crap. There are three now.”

            Stiles flailed for a second or two, “This is my job, what crap are you talking about?”

            Peter rolled his eyes and leaned closer to the human, “Focus, Stiles.”

            Suddenly a uniformed arm pulled the grown man away from the counter with a warning look. He turned to Stiles with a slightly exasperated look, passing a twenty over the counter.

            “Oh fine, ignore the important information regarding your little sister. Class A big bro, Derek.” Peter shrugged and leered at the pastries.

            “Laura already knows about the two Omegas found dead outside what was apparently a den. Got anything to add?” Derek smiled tightly at his uncle, who just held up his hands with an amused smile. Derek huffed and balanced the coffees, “Buy something and leave.”

            “Ah, a man after my own heart. I see why you’re everyone’s favorite deputy, Deputy Hale.” Lydia smirked as she entered the café, grabbing an apple on her way into her office.

            Peter rolled his eyes and ordered a bagel sandwich before trailing after Derek, who left his uncle curbside so he could go to work. Stiles had to stifle a laugh at Peter’s face when Derek pulled away without him. Peter turned to glare at Stiles through the cafe windows before he extracted his phone from his pocket.

            The rest of Stiles’ day at Café Luna was fine until Lydia asked him to stop by her office during his lunch break. He took a seat in her office and glanced at her uncomfortably.

            “So, werewolves.” She leaned back in her chair, analyzing Stiles’ face.

            His jaw dropped open and he looked upward in frustration, “How?!”

            He looked back at Lydia, who wore an amused look, and said sheepishly, “It seems to become less and less of a secret every day. I’m amazed it’s not public knowledge by now.”

            “Yeah, well Scott isn’t the best at keeping secrets. Or talking quietly, especially when he goes out back to call Allison and he stands right beneath my window.” Stiles rolled his eyes because of course his best friend blew the secret within the first few days. Classic Scott.

            “I’ll talk to Derek about what I can tell you and let you know by the end of the week.” Stiles sighed, getting up out of the chair.

            “Ooh Derek is a werewolf too? That explains the beautiful muscles.” Stiles gave her a look, and left the office while she was in her own world. Stiles shook his head as he ate his lunch, realizing how much his life had changed since high school. A few short years ago and Stiles would have been tripping over himself with Lydia, and would have tried to drag her out of a daydream about one of his dad’s deputies. He looked over to the counter and Isaac nodded at him with a small smile, and Stiles sucked in a happy breath. The contentment was great, and the only thing holding him back from reveling in his newfound supernatural family, was his dad.

            Stiles scrunched his face up at the thought. Just as he started to panic about breaking the news to his dad, his phone buzzed on the table.

            I’m going to tell your dad at lunch today, he’s getting bacon.

Stiles couldn’t pick his phone up fast enough, calling Derek while trying not to alarm Isaac with his sudden bug eyes.

“Stiles? Is everything ok?” Derek asked immediately.

“Pick me up on your way to lunch!” Stiles demanded.

Derek paused on the other end of the line, “No.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows as if Derek could see them from the station. “No? Derek, you are about to reveal that mythical creatures aren’t so mythical to my father, and you want me to just sit around and hope it ends well?! You told me you would pick me up last night!” Stiles was already packing up his lunch, and flailing at Lydia through the window on her office door that he was bailing. Scott tossed him his backpack that he usually brings along to work before disappearing back into the kitchen. Stiles scrunched up his face apologetically at Isaac as he sped out the door.

“Derek, so help me, if you aren’t—“ Stiles was cut off by the Deputy car pulling up to Café Luna.

He slid into the passenger’s seat and turned to Derek expectantly.

“I didn’t want you to be involved more than you had to be.” Derek said quietly.

“I’m already involved, and this is my father, so I’m going to be involved in this. But Derek, I just… I’m really not ready to face his anger.” Stiles groaned and leaned back against the seat.

“Why would John be angry at you? I’m the one who has been lying to him for the past two years.” Oh, Stiles could see the pain shoot through Derek’s (beautiful) eyes at that thought.

“Yeah, but you aren’t his flesh and blood. And ew, don’t call him John.” Stiles stuck his tongue out in protest.

“That’s his name, Stiles. Or should I say—“ Stiles flailed across the console to cover his mouth with a look of horror.

“Never utter the terrible name in public. Ever. Please. I beg of you.” Stiles croaked out, obviously not because he could feel Derek’s lips under his hands.

Derek smirked as Stiles lifted his hands. He flashed his elongated canines at Stiles, “I don’t think you get to call the shots here, Genim.”

“Ugh! You’re worse than my mom!” Stiles whined and threw his head back against the head rest. Derek looked over at Stiles cautiously, waiting for the words to sink in. Stiles opened one eye and slid it towards Derek.

“Nu-uh. We’re not opening that can of worms right now. We already have one majorly bad decision going down, we definitely don’t need another right now.” Derek sighed, mentally promising to remember to ask Stiles about that situation later.

The car pulled into the parking lot of the main diner in town, and Stiles noticed the Sheriff’s car already parked in front. He sucked in a breath and shot Derek a wary look. Derek smiled a bit, sliding his hand to the boy’s shoulders in an attempt to comfort him. They walked in and sat down at the booth in the back corner where the Sheriff was already giving them suspicious eyebrows.

“Ok, spill. You two are acting like you’re hiding a body.” The sheriff sighed heavily, mentally begging that it not be another body, not with Stiles involved.

Stiles closed his eyes, “You have to promise to neither resort to violence, nor admit us to the mental ward.”

“You’re not earning yourself any points here, kid.” The Sheriff now wore a very wary look. A waitress came over and took their orders, though the Sheriff shot Stiles a confused look when he didn’t protest at his order of a Bacon burger with cheese fries. That was never a good sign.

“So, you know how Kate Argent burned down my family home, saying burning was the best way to get rid of werewolves?” Derek gave John significant eyebrows, hoping he would catch on.

Stiles on the other side of the table, however, was trying to process the whole ‘someone in Allison’s family had been the cause of the huge Hale House fire that killed almost twenty people in one go’ bit of information. The Sheriff looked up from his iced tea with an alarmed skeptical look.

“You’re not saying…” Derek nodded.

“But…” The Sheriff sighed, “All right, so werewolves are real. You must be telling me for a reason, so what’s the rest of the story?”   
            Derek grinned proudly at the Sheriff, chuckling to himself at how similar the Sheriff and his son were.

“My uncle Peter, the one who was in coma for a few years after the fire, was in what we call an Omega state, which caused him to murder a few people. Essentially he wasn’t in his right mind, but it accounts for some of the murders that we’ve been looking at.” Before the Sheriff could get mad at his deputy about omitting evidence, Stiles jumped in.

“But wait, there’s more! Now a group of Omegas, crazy lonely wolves, are chilling in Beacon Hills just killing off people. But one of them is Derek’s little sister that somehow managed to survive the fire, so we can’t just kill them. Oh and Scott is a werewolf now too, and Deputy Reyes and Deputy Boyd are also werewolves.”

The Sheriff sat back against the seat by the end of Stiles’ word vomit.

            “Are you?” Stiles jerked his chin towards his neck suddenly. The question floored him more that he expected. His dad actually thought he would keep such a big secret from him.

            “No. You would be the first person I would tell about that kind of thing.” Stiles said, looking over at his dad.

            The rest of lunch went rather smoothly, everything considered. The Sheriff only threatened Derek once, and it was just so he would promise Stiles’ safety in all this.

            The deputy and Sheriff headed back to the station with a lot to talk about, and Stiles was dropped off at Café Luna with a promise to Lydia to work overtime. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ACK sorry this took so horribly long to post! I was sick this past week but now I'm getting back into writing again. 
> 
> Let me know how you guys like this chapter, I know I'm starting to lead away from the coffee shop a little more, but I will make it all wrap up nicely with the coffee shop, I swear!
> 
> I love you all for reading this, so always feel free to drop by [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) and, if you can find it on that page, I post a lot more frequent updates on my twitter.
> 
> I hope you all survived the pain that was Monday's episode!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter’s eyes flicked between the coffee machine and Stiles a few times before Stiles sighed heavily.
> 
> “If I make you coffee, will you go away?” Peter smirked at him and pulled himself onto the kitchen counter.

When Stiles arrived back at the café, Isaac was swamped with customers and Allison was on her lunch break in the kitchen, chatting with Scott. In his rush to get behind the counter, he slid into the counter that held the cups with orders scribbled on the side, knocking over at least half of them. Thankfully, none ended up on the floor, so Stiles didn’t have to further delay any orders.

            10 minutes later, Stiles had helped Isaac fill the nonstop flow of orders that came with the lunch rush. By the time the café had calmed down, Stiles and Isaac were in the middle of a heated debate over proper “foam-age” for different drinks. Allison walked out of the kitchen to Isaac calling Stiles out for his failure to properly foam drinks. She snorted and agreed, sparking a challenge from Stiles. The three were fighting over the foam machines, trying to prove their barista skills. Unfortunately, Stiles was still rather green to the whole process, having only started that summer.

            Peter Hale walked into Café Luna for the second time that day, only to question his newly recovered sanity (Stiles still doesn’t believe it though). Three college students were blowing foam out of cups at each other, occasionally tossing empty milk cartons at one another while the few customers sitting at tables throughout the café simply ignored them. With a roll of his eyes he strode forward to the counter and cleared his throat like he used to with the gaggle of Hale children to get their attention.

            Isaac froze and wrinkled his nose a bit at the appearance of his least favorite pack member, while the Argent girl just straightened up, smelling only slightly of the Argent scent he had quickly associated with death. Stiles however seemed stuck with his lips outstretched to blow foam at his coworkers. _Classy choice there, Derek,_ Peter rolled his eyes internally.

            “Hi, what can I get you sir?” Allison was the most focused of the group, though she was the last one in the group Peter wanted to converse with.

            “Whatever bagel sandwich I had earlier, and whatever coffee you recommend, Stiles.” Peter gave him a predatory smile. Allison just gave him a confused look and started typing his order into the register.

            Isaac slid back into the kitchen to see if Scott had finished replenishing the stock of bagel sandwiches from the lunch rush.

            Allison was waiting for a coffee order so she could have a price to charge the man, so Stiles ultimately relented. “I recommend the dark Colombian brew, black, like your heart.” Stiles grinned and went to grab a cup.

            “Oh come now Stiles, any _friend_ of Derek’s is a friend of mine, don’t be so hostile.” Allison’s eyes flicked up to glance at the man and looked back at the register quickly, recognition clearly flashing in her eyes.

            “You’re not my friend.” Stiles sang out as he filled the cup with the last bit of coffee in the carafe, the part of each brew that Stiles and Allison referred to as sludge.

            Peter just set his smirk on Stiles as he handed over his card. Stiles pushed the cup over the counter so he could go wait further down the counter to pick up his sandwich. Isaac carried a tray of sandwiches out to put in the display case, so Allison slid one into a bag and walked over to the pick up counter. A small smirk graced her face before she called out to the man waiting.

            “Crazy Uncle Peter, your sandwich is ready!” Isaac bit his lip to keep from laughing at his packmate.

            “Dammit Scott.” Peter grumbled, obviously hearing something in the kitchen that Stiles’ human ears were not privy to. After the surly man had left the café, the boys turned to Allison with excited smiles.

            “How’d you know about Peter?” Stiles asked immediately

            Allison spared a look over her shoulder towards the kitchen, “My boyfriend isn’t the best with secrets. He stepped out back on his first day back to explain why we couldn’t work the same shifts that day.”

            The fond smile on her face, while sweet, made their friends roll their eyes. Scott and Allison would have been Cinderella and Prince Charming  had they been in a fairytale, except with more ass kicking on Allison’s part.

            “Also, the Argents are hunters, so I already knew about you guys.” She shrugged as if everyone had a family that hunted supernatural creatures for a living. Stiles swore that since he had come back to Beacon Hills, he had slipped into a season of Supernatural.

            Allison educated Stiles for the rest of her shift on the finer points of self-defense, promising that he could come over and train with her and her dad. Isaac seemed a bit miffed at the idea, to which Stiles almost stuck his tongue out at the wolfboy. He could do whatever he wanted, and if the Omegas were as much of an issue as they seemed, Stiles didn’t want to be the only one unable to protect himself.

            By the time Stiles’ shift finished, Isaac had left for the Hale house like an excited little puppy, Allison had been picked up by her mother, and Scott had biked home after lining up everything to be baked tomorrow. That left Lydia ordering new stock in her office, and Jackson, who had come in for the late shift. Stiles was glaring at the clock, willing it to go faster so he could escape Jackson’s quips about him getting out of shape (uh, no. He played Quidditch in college, bitches. That was a _serious_ workout).

            Lydia poked her head out of her office, waving Stiles off a few minutes early. Stiles rushed to grab his bag and waited outside on the curb the Café for his dad to pick him up.

            “You shouldn’t be waiting alone in the dark.” A voice sounded behind him. A tall woman with deep chestnut hair and stunning eyes stood behind him.

            “Ah, don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine. You shouldn’t walk alone in the dark, either!” Stiles immediately checked to make sure no creeps were trailing the woman, a force of habit from walking around town with his dad, the eternal gentleman.

            When his eyes flicked back to the woman, her eyes were glowing and her teeth had elongated. He sighed, already sick of the werewolf infestation.

            “You’re one of the Omegas, aren’t you?” Her lips pulled back to reveal her terribly intimidating teeth.

            “You wouldn’t happen to be Cora, would you?” Stiles asked, though his voice was devoid of hope.

            She cocked her head to the side, setting a glare on him that, while scary, did not match the Hale glares that he was becoming accustomed to from Laura and Derek.

            “Yeah, didn’t think I could get that lucky.” Stiles paused a second, looking around and trying to remember the locations Boyd and Erica had found yesterday, none of which were near Café Luna.

            “Wait, why would you kill me here?” The woman rolled her eyes, which was probably funnier to Stiles than it should have been.

            “You remind me of my first crush. After he crushed my heart, I crushed his neck. Can’t let you live to repeat the mistake, no matter how adorable you are.”

            Stiles pouted a bit, preferring attractive or hot to being called adorable. The woman’s back arched forward and she let out a howl before she crumpled to the ground. Derek stood behind the moaning werewolf, rage seemingly coursing through his electric blue eyes.

            “Dramatic much, Derek?” Stiles smirked, breathing a bit easier. Derek pulled Stiles away from the quickly healing wolf, holding the boy against his side as Laura stepped towards the other alpha.

            “Get him out of here.” Laura growled, claws extending, fur appearing from nowhere. Derek hurried Stiles into the car, nearly ripping the car away from the curb in his hurry to get him away from danger.

 

* * *

 

            He pulled in front of an apartment building in the middle of town, and all but dragged Stiles up the stairs in his rush to ensure Stiles’ safety. Derek unlocked a door into a spacious loft that was ridiculously bare of furniture for a home. Isaac, Scott, Allison, Erica, and Boyd were all sitting around the loft, and Derek growled, startling the other betas into standing. He all but pushed Stiles on the couch, and stared at him. The rest of the pack didn’t know what was happening, and Stiles didn’t know how to respond to Derek’s protectiveness.

            “You ok, Stiles?” Scott asked, moving closer to his best friend, only to have Derek flash his eyes at the boy whilst his vocal cords vibrated menacingly.

            “Uh, what the hell, Derek?” Scott asked, eyes bugging.

            “Derek. Calm down, just focus on the kid.” Peter went to the kitchen and stared at the coffee machine.

            “Hey!” Stiles yelled at Peter, but Derek sat down next to Stiles and just stared, garnering more of the boy’s attention.

            “Okay Derek, stop that! I get that I’m Mr. Fragile Human, but I am fine! Crazy omega lady didn’t even touch me!” Stiles huffed, got up and stalked over to the kitchen.

            Peter’s eyes flicked between the coffee machine and Stiles a few times before Stiles sighed heavily.

            “If I make you coffee, will you go away?” Peter smirked at him and pulled himself onto the kitchen counter.

            Stiles started making the coffee and Allison took pity on him and searched through the kitchen until she found what she needed to steam some milk.

            “Did you actually like that coffee this morning?” Allison asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust. Peter nodded, but refused to show his confusion. Shouldn’t he have enjoyed the coffee that the locals all swear by?

            “Good, I’ll save all the sludge for you.” Stiles muttered as he poured hot water into the French press.

            Peter coughed suddenly, “Sludge?”

            “The lovely bit of coffee at the bottom of the pots of coffee that have been sitting a bit too long.” Allison smiled innocently.

            “Juveniles.” Peter huffed. Stiles ignored him in favor of searching for mugs for the pack.

            A hand settled on his shoulder, “Top right shelf.” Stiles turned to see Derek standing behind him. Stiles smiled the smallest bit, before pulling out all of the mugs in the cupboard. While all were mismatched, there were enough for the entire pack, including Laura when she arrived home.

            “Why do you and your sister have so many mugs?” Stiles asked mindlessly as he filled a few cups with freshly pressed coffee.

            “We went shopping!” Laura called from the doorway.

            Her hands and clothes were covered with obscene amounts of blood, but she seemed fine otherwise. Erica walked forward, and pulled one of Laura’s arms around her neck, helping her up the stairs to her room. Stiles raised an eyebrow at Derek, who was handing cups of coffee to Allison to pour milk into.

            “Wounds from an omega tend to heal weird, so she’s going to grumpy for a few hours.” Derek said quietly, almost as if he blamed himself for her injuries.

            Stiles glanced back up the stairs with a worried look. A hand on his shoulder distracted him momentarily, and Derek’s pleading eyes distracted him for an undetermined amount of time.

            “Don’t worry about her Stiles, she’ll be fine; She always is.” Stiles sighed and turned towards Derek.

            “Stiles! Where’s my absurdly delicious coffee?” Peter whined from across the room.

            “Can we kill him?” Stiles deadpanned and Derek nodded enthusiastically.

            Allison, Stiles, and Derek helped pass out mugs of coffee to the various pack members, making sure Peter got his cup last, since he was too lazy to get up. Even Laura got her mug delivered upstairs before Peter was allowed a mug of fresh coffee.

            The warm drink elicited delighted moans from many pack members and Laura yelled something about marrying Stiles from upstairs, so he assumed that was a good thing. He high-fived Allison and went about draining his own mug.

            “Can all pack meetings come equipped with Stiles coffee?” Erica begged.

            “Please.” Boyd said seriously, giving Stiles a thumbs-up, which was practically a rousing standing ovation from the deputy.

            “Hey, I helped too!” Allison protested lightly as she grabbed extra milk to pour into Scott’s drink.

            “Pack meetings?” Derek raised his eyebrows at the group with what Stiles decided was his judgmental face.

            “So are we just going to ignore what happened just now, or are we just going to sit here until the wee hours of the morning?” Stiles joked.

            “Ignore it.” Derek growled firmly. Stiles did his best to ignore the hands that were balling up from his spot next to Stiles on the couch. Stiles bumped his shoulder against the man with a worried look. The werewolf just shook his head, which Stiles would have protested, had a call not interrupted the moment. Scott answered his phone with a wrinkle in his brow. Even Stiles’ human ears could hear the yelling that exploded from the phone as soon as Scott picked up.

            “What the hell McCall? Mind telling me why two _werewolves_ , of all things, were fighting outside Lydia’s café?!” Scott chuckled nervously at Jackson’s outburst, only for more yelling to follow, though Stiles’ ears couldn’t quite decipher what was being yelled.

            “Now the entire staff of Café Luna is privy to the supernatural world.” Stiles muttered. Derek’s mouth quirked up a bit, and it took everything Stiles had to not fist-pump at entertaining Derek mere minutes after he was so entirely frustrated.

            “It was only a matter of time. Now we can have more people keeping an eye on you.” Stiles started to protest, but Derek smirked and said, “You have a unique magnetism.”

            Both men froze and Derek hastily covered his furry butt by adding, “for trouble. Trouble magnet, thy name is Stiles.”

            The rest of the pack turned away from the couple, ignoring Scott still on the phone. They were torn between giggling at the blush on both their cheeks and slamming the boys together so they would finally stop skirting around one another. Erica shot off a quick text to Isaac and shot him pleading looks until he relented without drawing Derek’s attention.

            “Hey Stiles, I’m going to Jungle tomorrow night, and I don’t want to be the only one there with Danny, so I didn’t know if you wanted to go?”

            Technically nothing he said was a lie, so Derek heard no irregularity in his heartbeat. This only threw him back into his funk from earlier, earning him a confused look from Stiles.

            “Sure, Isaac! Not like I’ve got better things to do!” Stiles turned to Derek quickly, “Hey Mr. Sourwolf, want to come along?”

            “No.” Derek’s arms were crossed, his face unyielding. Stiles pulled his chin into his neck, now startled by the abrupt reaction from his dad’s deputy.

            “Oh. All right, sorry, didn’t mean to impose.” Stiles mumbled and Derek’s heart sunk into his stomach.

            Allison watched this all with a pitying look, and finally decided to save Stiles.

            “I’m heading out, Stiles. Your house is on the way so I could take you back so the wolves can bond or roll in the mud or whatever it is they do?” Stiles’ eyes light up with relief and he bolted up from the couch, saying goodbye without making direct eye contact with Derek.

 

            Stiles slid into her dark car with a sigh, earning himself a pity pat from Allison as they drove away. Stiles bitterly decided to add to his honors thesis his hypothesis that lycanthropy also subjects the person to horrendous mood swings and makes them generally unlikeable for stints of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry it's been so long since I updated! Things have gotten crazy, and now I'm on vacation, so I give no guarantees of a new chapter in the next few days, but I'm hopefully going to have a lot of downtime!
> 
> Also, if any of you know a download link for Frayed, you could totally let me know over at [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) ? My hotel's TV does not get MTV and there's not another TV option for a few hours in any direction (and I'd rather not wait 3 weeks and have to avoid the internet for the whole trip until I can get to my DVR)
> 
> Comment and let me know what you liked, what you'd like to see, or whatever you want to say! Thank you so much for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura has to intervene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Panic attack

Allison was working early shift with Stiles that morning, so she offered to pick him up. Stiles texted Derek that he already had a ride for that morning, but never received a text back. Of course, Stiles took this to mean he had horribly offended the werewolf the night before, but there wasn't much he could do to remedy it.

            Stiles moped around Café Luna as he wiped down all the tables, and Lydia sighed every time she walked past him. Most of the morning was spent doing menial tasks, as Allison had everything else covered. She had filled the sheriff's department coffee order when Erica and Boyd came in to pick it up. She had delivered the coffee to Laura as she waited outside the café in attempt to not draw Stiles’ attention, though he was bound to notice her shooting worried looks at him while she waited.

            “Stiles, you forgot to clean the windows.” Lydia said gently as she walked past the boy at the counter. He sighed quietly and walked over to the windows to wipe them clean. He tried to enthusiastically greet all the customers that walked, but he lost his motivation 5 minutes in. Lydia watched him from the counter with her arms crossed and an unhappy look growing on her face.

            By the time Stiles had reinstalled himself behind the counter, Lydia was beyond frustrated. She marched over to the counter once the customer grabbing brunch had left the shop.

            “Stiles. Whatever is causing this funk, get over it. I’m not mad about the fight that went down out front—“ Stiles shook his head at Lydia’s comment, doing what he swore to never do: cut Lydia off.

            “It’s not about the fight, Lydia. It’s… It’s nothing.” Stiles turned back to the counter in hopes to find something to occupy himself and allow him to ignore Lydia.

            Lydia rolled her eyes and slammed her hand onto the granite countertop.

            “Stiles Stilinski, I am going to say something that I do not say lightly and do _not_ want to repeat, so listen up.”

Her voice softened as she continued, “You are my friend and I just want what’s best for you. Obviously, whatever the hell _this_ ,” she gestured to Stiles’ face, “is not what’s best for you.”

Stiles wrinkled his brow, “My face? My face is bad for me…?”

Lydia looked like she wanted to bang her head on the counter, a position Stiles knew all too well. She gave him a frustrated look, but walked back to her office when a customer walked in. She muttered something about not believing Stiles was really as smart as Allison said.

Besides his boss taking a loop on the crazy train, Stiles’ day was relatively normal. He was uncomfortable most of the day, but when Isaac and Jackson came to take over their shifts, Stiles couldn’t have been happier. Allison offered to drive him home again, and if Stiles pretended not to see the deputy car parked across the street, well that was his business. Even if he had paid attention to the car, it’s not like he knew it was Derek’s car. Because apparently Derek didn’t want to hang out with him.

Stiles waved off Allison and let himself into his house, only to find Laura relaxing on his couch. He squeaked ever so slightly, but tried to hide it after seeing Laura’s smirk.

“Uh, hi Laura?” Stiles dropped his bag by the door and made his way to the kitchen to grab water from the fridge. Laura stalked her way into the kitchen, her gait reminding Stiles that wolves are predators and Laura was most definitely able to stalk her prey.

“Stiles, dear, I heard from some birdies that you weren’t the happiest wolf today?”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at the alpha suspiciously, but offered her a glass of water as a peace offering.

“Nope, I was happy as a clam. How happy are clams, actually? More or less than wolves? Just so we’re clear.”

“Have a seat, pup.” Laura gestured to the table.

Stiles spit some of his water back into his cup, “Pup? I’m only a few years younger than you!”

Laura patted the chair next to her, “Enough years apart, also I’m the alpha.”

Once Stiles was seated, she sipped her water. “Now, Derek is being multiple shades of dull and depressed, and apparently you’re not too far behind. Mind telling me what’s happening?”

Stiles gulped a bit more of his water to draw out his answer. “You saw his reaction last night when I asked him to hang out. Obviously not interested, I can take a hint.”

The look of disbelief on Laura’s face did nothing to soothe Stiles’ nerves. She sighed and clasped her hands together in a look all too reminiscent of his father.

“Stiles, you are pack. Therefore I feel it my responsibility to inform you of your oblivious nature and also your idiocy.” She smiled sweetly, though all her teeth looked human, so Stiles couldn’t tell if she was trying to be threatening or just a natural at scaring him.

            “Uhm.” Stiles blinked. “Can you elaborate?”

            Laura huffed a bit. “Stiles, you have been oblivious to Derek’s _obvious_ pining since you met him and today was the last straw.”

            Stiles sunk further into his chair. He knew he wasn’t the best at picking up social cues sometimes (read: Lydia and parties), but he was usually spot-on when someone was not mutually interested.  He wanted to become one with the floor at the thought that he had been making a fool of himself all this time, being obvious about his favorite deputy, whilst the man pined for someone else. The sheer fact that Laura had to come and tell him to back off was just pitiful, though. Stiles was thinking of ways to get back to school early so he could get out of Beacon Hills, maybe convince Isaac that he was wrong, he didn’t really want to join the Beacon Hills pack. But, no… that wouldn’t work because that would ruin Isaac’s happiness and that man deserved nothing but happiness for all the shit he had dealt with in his life. Maybe he could—

            Laura growled a bit to draw him out from his whirlpool of thoughts.

            “Look, I know I’m not exactly subtle, but I swear I’ll stop getting in his way. I can’t ruin this opportunity at a pack for Isaac and now that my dad knows, I can’t promise that he will back off, but I promise I will! My Jeep is coming home tomorrow, finally, so I won’t have to bother him for rides and—and, uhm…” Stiles could feel his heart start beating too fast and too hard in his chest when he took in the skeptical look on Laura’s face.

            “Stiles, I think you misunderstood me.” She listened a bit more carefully, and sure enough, she heard the loudly abnormal drumming of Stiles' heart as he slipped into a panic attack. “Hey, hey Stiles, it’s ok. Shit. What am I supposed to do when you have a panic attack? Stiles, hey, calm down pup. You’ll be ok.”

            Of course, none of that really had an impact. The pressure still rose in Stiles’ chest and he still got dizzy. He heard Laura howl in a desperate attempt at getting some help, but that only furthered the panic attack. Stiles curled in on himself, trying to calm down.

            “I’m really sorry. Don’t bother him, Laura. I don’t want to be that pathetic kid, ok?” He mumbled shakily, though his sentences weren’t the most coherent the more he babbled on.

            “You are not pathetic, Stiles. Anything but that.” A broken voice sounded from behind Stiles, making Stiles look up at Derek.

            “Derek, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you, I get that you like someone else and that I must have offended you. I’m not sure why you were mad when I asked you to join Isaac and I tonight, but—oh god I have to go to Jungle tonight and I don’t think I can deal with that.”

            His heavy breathing was soon drowned out by soft growls. Derek sat cross-legged in front of Stiles, and stared at him intensely. He drew in a breath, growled softly, and repeated. The slow pattern and the oddly calming sound grounded Stiles. Slowly, he could balance out his breaths, tucking the air all the way into his lungs. The nervous pressure in his chest didn’t fade immediately, but the relieved look on Derek’s face helped to speed up the process.

            Then Derek’s face contorted and his eyebrows got entirely too close to his eyes, and Stiles wasn’t sure whether to hide from him or start cracking jokes.

            “Wait, what are you talking about?” Laura was pointedly not looking near Derek when he whipped around to face her. “What did you do?”

            Stiles moved forward to put a hand on Derek to relax him, but pulled it away at the last second. Derek looked floored and his hand shot out to catch Stiles’ hand before it got away.

            “Hey, whatever she said? I can almost certainly guarantee it’s wrong.” His eyes reflected some of the light from the ceiling lights, leaving Stiles to steel himself from getting distracted by them.

            “It was nothing! She just told me you were pining!” Stiles said with false cheer. He tried to ignore the heat and comfort he felt through Derek’s hand.

            Like a bolt struck him, Derek sat up straight, shooting Stiles a wary look. With a sigh, Stiles continued. “I’ll get out of your way, I promise. I really did not mean to get in your way or interfere in you two getting together.”

            If it were nighttime, crickets would have been chirping to fill the silence.

            “Us two? Who are you talking about?” Derek shot looks at Laura, who was now sitting on the table eating Skittles (“Why do we have Skittles in the house? Dad!”) like she was watching a good movie.

            “I don’t know!” Stiles spluttered, “Whoever the person you’re pining over is!”

            Laura snorted into the bowl of Skittles, but didn’t utter a word. 

            Wrinkling his forehead in frustration, Derek slowly tried to clarify the issue.

            “Stiles, the person who I have been ‘pining’ over, as you two so charmingly call it... is you. You’re not being a bother, I was jealous but not mad last night, and what did any of this have to with Isaac?”

            Stiles’ sudden grin was absurdly goofy, and he decided to answer Derek’s questions later. He catapulted himself at Derek, forcing the man to wrap his arms around him so as to prevent the human from hitting the ground.

            “All right, this is too Rom-Com for me, so I’ll see you at the house later.” Laura paused at the doorway, before she walked back to take the Skittles with her. “Also, Jungle was just a ploy by the betas to piss off Derek, so you don't have to worry about that tonight, bye!”

            In that moment, Stiles was beyond thankful that werewolf powers did not include heat-ray vision (“though, how cool would that be? Alpha rays! Beta rays!” “Shut _up_ Stiles.”). If they _could_ shoot lasers out their eyes, Stiles would no longer have a front door.

            Unfortunately, he couldn’t distract himself forever, and he eventually had to look back at Derek. Derek shuffled around for a minute uncomfortably, before noticing the rumble of the Sheriff’s car. “Your dad is home.”

            Stiles tried to ignore the embarrassed tinge to his voice, but his mouth had other entirely separate plans about keeping quiet. “Do you _ever_ work anymore? You’re always at the old house and with Laura, and at my beck-and-call. When do you have time to work?”

            Not quite the question Derek had expected, but he answered it calmly, “You have long work shifts, Stiles. My hours just often match up with yours. “

            Stiles took that to mean Derek arranged his work schedule around Stiles’ (which he had), and immediately wanted to hug the living growls out of Derek. However, that was the exact moment the Sheriff walked in the front door. He paused halfway to detaching his gun harness, but paused at the sight of the two men.

            Stiles and Derek greeted him stiffly, but just kept a wide berth for the next few minutes. Stiles’ father finally got frustrated at all the dancing around each other and groaned, “Just get together already!”

            Stiles glanced at Derek one last time, before turning a smirk on the Sheriff.

            “So I’m just gonna take that as the seal of approval. No take-backs!”

            Both the deputy and the sheriff shook their heads, but the Sheriff leaned towards Derek, stage-whispering, “You chose this!”

            Derek chuckled and wrapped a ginger arm around Stiles’ lower back.

 

            “Yes I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter and the numerous mistakes! I'm trying to post this quickly (and I'm hardly conscious) before I sleep because I may not have internet for the next 1-2 days. 
> 
> I hope you liked it despite the length! Feel free to send me messages and prompts on [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) !


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one ever said Stiles had good ideas.

“Stupid overprotective werewolf.”

            Allison chuckled at Stiles’ grumbling from the milk frother. With the omegas running around still, Derek had decided he really didn’t want his boyfriend in danger, so Stiles was under werewolf supervision round the clock. Boyd was on his day off, so he got stuck with Stiles-watching, though Allison didn’t quite see the point.

            None of the omegas would just walk into Café Luna. It probably smelled like the multitude of werewolves that seemed to live for coffee ever since Stiles rolled back into town. Besides, Allison kept a compact crossbow attached to the bottom of the counter, two knives were strapped to her thighs at all times, plus there was a whole stock of extra wolfsbane-laced arrows in the cleaning closet. If anyone could protect Stiles, Allison was it.

            Nonetheless, Derek didn’t trust his favorite person with the niece of the person who murdered most of his family. Boyd and Erica usually tried to have watch at the same time, but it didn’t reflect well at the station if they always took their days off together. Isaac was usually on the same shift as Stiles, which made things easier, but Laura loved stopping in, even when it wasn’t her shift to watch Stiles.

            Stiles was not overly fond of the new arrangements. In the past 2 days, Allison had overheard at least 3 arguments over the phone over the “watchdogs” (Allison laughed when Stiles yelled that, earning her points with the boy).

            So when Stiles caught sight of the Camaro pulling into the café’s parking lot, he groaned. Since Derek had just dropped him off not two hours ago, he knew it must be the oh-so-loving Alpha.

            Sure enough, Laura strode into the café and waved at Boyd before ordering a drink. While Allison made the drink, Stiles decided to complain to the older sister.

            “Why must Derek be so overprotective?” Stiles groaned from across the counter he was wiping.

            Laura gave him a pitying look, “Stiles, my baby bro is just terrible with his emotions. Instead of showering you with love, he is just holding it in.”

            Stiles looked up from the cleaning, “So you’re saying my boyfriend is a piñata?”

            Laura snorted, “Yes. And if you hit him hard enough, he will give you candy.”

            Allison had to keep from laughing behind the cappuccino machine as she listened to the future in-laws, or so she hoped, otherwise she owed Jackson fifty bucks.

            “But seriously, Derek… his greatest fear is losing his loved ones, and this time, it’s not just family. It’s someone he chose, so he would blame himself for all eternity if something happened to you.”

            Stiles seemed speechless at that, but of course he still had another question, “Doesn’t he already blame himself for what happened to your family?”

            Laura’s sigh was enough of a response for Stiles. “And isn’t family more important than…” Stiles gestured around in the air helplessly before settling on himself, “than…you know, me?”

            Allison slid the drink past Stiles to the werewolf, who was giving Stiles the most exasperated look.

            “You really are the most oblivious person I think I have ever met.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, “Family is chosen for you. You never like everyone in your family, but you? Derek _chose_ you, and he didn’t just randomly close his eyes and point. Stiles, you are it for Derek. I’m not saying you’re stuck with him forever or anything like that, but he _would not_ survive the pain and guilt if you got hurt or… So just give him this, ok?”

            Stiles paused a minute, trying to process that information. Laura relieved Boyd of his post and winked at Stiles from her table along the side of the café. Stiles wore a faint smile whenever he thought about Derek, or caught one of the many looks from Laura across the café.

            When Derek walked in to drive Stiles home, he groaned dramatically at the sight of his sister in the corner. With the 5 empty cups occupying her small table, Derek immediately started imagining what kind of damage had been done in the expanse of time since she had arrived.

            All thoughts immediately vacated his brain though when he caught Stiles giving him a lopsided grin as he finished the drinks he was making. Derek’s mouth turned up in response before he slipped over to Laura’s table.

            He shot the alpha a raised eyebrow, to which she replied with an innocent smile and a not-so innocent kick to his right shin. Unfortunately, Derek had to sit anyway, so he pushed his chair as far as he could from his sister until Stiles finished his shift.

            If he was being completely honest with himself, his heart nearly burst with joy when Stiles hugged him close after his shift. Pointedly ignoring Laura’s smug look, he crushed the urge to smile and pull him closer and led his boyfriend outside to his Sheriff’s department car.

 

* * *

 

            “Stiles,” Derek gripped the wheel tightly, trying to reign in his frustration as best as he could, “Just stay in tonight. That’s all I’m asking.”

            Stiles’ arms were crossed across his chest, refusing to concede to Derek. “I don’t see why I need to! No one is going to attack the Sheriff’s house, so you can't use me defending my dad as an excuse! If anything, _you_ need to be under tight surveillance, in case Cora comes after you!”

            Derek sighed heavily, “I can heal, you can’t! End of discussion, ok? Now, go inside please, before your father decides I’m taking advantage of you in a work car.”

            Stiles grabbed his stuff from the floor of the car and muttered, “If only,” as he slid out of the car. If he didn’t know better, Stiles almost thought Derek’s little huff after that comment was a laugh.

            Though Stiles understood why Derek wanted him to stay indoors at night, he didn’t understand why he was being so adamant about him not taking a single step outdoors that night. Naturally, Stiles called Scott once he was in his room and away from his dad’s ever-worrying ears.

            “So what the hell is happening tonight that has Derek so worried?” Stiles asked seconds after Scott picked up.

            After a few seconds of stammering, Scott tried to save himself, “ Uhm, no clue. Must just be umm… half-moon jitters.”

            Stiles wished he had Skyped his best friend, just so Scott could see the absolute deadpan look he was giving him. “Worst liar ever, dude.”

            “I’m sorry man, I agree with Derek on this one! You’ll be safer if you’re kept out of it. I’d rather have a living best friend that’s mad, than a best friend lying dead after being torn to pieces.” Scott said grumpily.

            “So something is going down, otherwise you wouldn’t be so worried that I’d be torn to pieces!” Stiles was about to press for more details, but he was cut-off by the flat-line noise coming from Scott’s end of the phone. Darn. Scott had finally learned how to hang up on Stiles’ rants.

            Stiles spun around in his desk chair while he dialed Isaac’s number, hoping Scott hadn’t called him yet.

            “Hey Stiles, everything ok?” Isaac answered immediately.

            With a devious grin, Stiles added just a touch of nonchalance to his voice, “Yeah, I just wanted to run through the plan for tonight one last time, and Scott and Derek were too busy to go over it again.”

            Stiles heard Isaac start to say something, but stop himself. “Wait, I thought Derek didn’t want to include you in this because there’s going to be serious fighting and shit?”

            Eyebrows shot straight up, though Stiles’ brow could never compare to the expression of his boyfriend. “He said something about Laura convincing him otherwise? I don’t know, he just told me about it after he picked me up. Wait, are you on break? Crap, I just blanked that you're still at the Cafe.”

            Isaac chuckled on the other end, “Nah, but I’m taking stock while the store is slow, no worries. Well, ok it’s not much of a plan, but we’re all fanning out through the preserve, since Peter tracked the last two omegas into the woods. I assume you’re going to stick with Derek? But after that we’re all just herding the two of them towards the Hale house, where Allison and her father are waiting to kill the omega, and help restrain Cora until we determine if she can be taken into the pack.”

            “Wait, what does Allison’s father have to do with any of this?” Stiles blurted out, not taking a second to think.

            There was a short pause on the other end, “Didn’t Derek explain that to you?”

            Stiles scrunched up his face while he tried to figure out a reasonable explanation. “Well, he just told me about Allison…”

            Isaac made a positive noise on the other end of the line, while it sounded like he was rifling through shelves. “Mmm, guess that makes sense. Derek is not Mr. Argent’s biggest fan. Probably has to do with him not monitoring Kate's adherenceto the Hunter’s Code or not when all the Hale fire stuff went down.”

            Stiles nodded and talked with him about a few other things so it didn’t seem too suspicious that he was just calling to talk about that night and hung up a few minutes later.

            Stiles nervously made dinner and stuck it in the fridge for his dad, cleaned his room by stuffing everything under the sun beneath the bed, and finally gave up trying to focus on other things and get dressed in running sweats and a jacket. After leaving a note for his dad that he was out at Derek’s for “werewolf business!” Stiles hopped in his Jeep and drove to the temporarily abandoned Hale house.

            He found no other cars there by the time he arrived, so he parked the Jeep behind the house and snuck into the half-remodeled house. Thankfully he had charged the battery on his phone, so after finding a relatively solid step on the main staircase, he had settled in to play games until Allison arrived. He figured she would be the most lenient with letting him help, since she’s one of the members of their new little Team Human thing.

            Somewhere around an hour later, Stiles heard feet crunching through leaves, so he slid his phone into his pocket and started to make his way through the house. _Odd,_ he thought, _I didn’t even hear a car pull up and surely they didn’t walk this far into the preserve._ He shrugged and kept towards the front door, _I guess that’s what happens when you play Candy Crush. Damn addictive games._

            He swung the door open, prepared to let loose a string of words to convince Allison not to shoot him with that crossbow he knows she keeps in the store. Except it wasn’t Allison, or her father.

            A woman with glowing eyes stood on the porch in front of Stiles. Her dark brown hair and facial structure should have given away her lineage, but her eyes looked just like Derek’s, almost knocking Stiles over from shock.

            “Cora.” There was no question about it this time.

            Her lip pulled up as her nose scrunched in a sneer that revealed teeth that Stiles really did not want put through his jugular. He chuckled nervously, trying to back himself towards the kitchen where at least he would have some choice of weaponry.

            Cora’s eyes flashed dangerously and she snarled at him, making Stiles jump for his cell phone. He struggled to get it out of the twisted pocket of his sweats, and only just barely kept it from dropping.

            The omega stalked closer and Stiles didn’t trust himself to focus on the phone and still walk backwards. If he fell, he knew he was done for, easy prey. Trying not to lose sight of Cora, he glanced quickly at his phone and jabbed his finger at Derek’s name in his contacts.

            The ringing took too long, though. The younger Hale sister was almost on top of him and Stiles couldn’t reach the knives yet. He might have been able to reach the sink head to spray her with, but that would only piss her off further.

            On the third dial tone, Stiles slid his foot back slowly, trying to gain as much distance with this backstep as possible. With a quick slide back, Stiles slid far enough to grab a heavy saucepan from the stovetop that someone had left in their hurry to vacate the house a few days prior. Unfortunately, Cora took this time to strike, and she pounced towards the college student.

            There was a loud bang, and the pan clattered to the floor, probably cracking that tile that Laura had just had installed. Stiles’ phone had slipped out of his hand and was now lying by the foot of new cabinets. Derek had picked up just in time to hear the racket on the other end of the line, and the uninterrupted dead silence that followed.

            “Stiles? Stiles?! Oh god, Stiles where the fuck are you?”       

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, sorry it took me so long to update! My computer had issues and whatnot. 
> 
> Happy Moonday and in honor of the episode that I'm just now turning the TV on to watch, leave some prompts in my ask (anon or not) for me to fill over at [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) !
> 
> I really appreciate all of the kudos and subscriptions and I don't know how to express my gratitude. But thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I really truly appreciate it! :)
> 
> If for some reason you felt kudos weren't enough, [my ko-fi page is now up & running!](ko-fi.com/kimske)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stiles isn't dead and wants to read up on hunter-werewolf rules.

“Stiles? Stiles?! Oh god, Stiles where the fuck are you?”

 

            Stiles was gasping for breath as he curled into himself and shamelessly writhed on the floor. Shit, his hand was practically vibrating in pain. The pan that had inadvertently caused the pain was lying close to his phone, a few yards away from his current spot on the tile.

            He was speechless, less because of his awesome heroics (Rapunzel knew what she was doing with that frying pan) and more because of the pain that was radiating from his hand. When the pain dulled slightly, Stiles tried to pinpoint the exact location of the pain to no avail. The only conclusion he could draw was that the pain felt like it had seeped into his bone marrow. At that point, even breathing was hard. Any movement left Stiles feeling like his head was splitting from the pain. It was like his hand had fallen asleep, except the static-like pain was hyper-sensitive to any bodily movements. Damn werewolves and their overly-hard bodies.

            A minute or so passed before Stiles could bite back the pain enough to focus on outside stimulants, like the cell phone that had apparently been yelling at him for the duration of his pain-induced daze.

            With a shaky breath, Stiles tried to ease himself up to push himself over to where his phone had slid. He let out a hiss when he jostled his hand and decided yelling was a better option.

            “Derek?” Stiles spoke up, hoping his phone’s crappy microphone would pick up the sounds.

            “Stiles? Stiles, oh—“ Derek’s panicked voice yelled back, but Stiles interrupted him immediately with a choppy, breathless voice.

            “Hey, Derek. OK no interrupting because my hand hurts like… fuck it’s painful ok? ‘Kay so I have Cora knocked out via frying pan on the floor of the kitchen of your house. I’ll explain why I’m here later but I need someone to come help make sure she doesn’t wake up before you all can get here, ok?” Stiles sucked in some long and careful breaths, careful not to move his ever-throbbing hand.

            “I’ll be right there.” Derek growled and Stiles heard some sort of sound in the background that he was just going to classify as Derek’s worried walking noises.

            “No, you possessive dolt! You’re an experienced wolf, so go track down the remaining omega first. Get someone less experienced over here.” Stiles kept throwing worried glances to Cora’s body, all the while hoping werewolf healing powers didn’t allow them to recover quickly from a head hit.

            Derek said something then, but Stiles’ attention was drawn towards the front door of the house as the front door swung open with a clatter. Allison stood with her bow drawn, and an older man that Stiles figured had to be Allison’s father, stood with two guns outstretched.

            “Stiles, back up.” Allison warned in the scariest tone he had ever heard from her mouth.

            He tried to scoot himself toward the phone again, managing to make pained noises but still move so he was leaning against the cabinet next to his phone. The pain was still present, but at least it seemed like the rest of his body was fine, now that the weird static-like pain had subsided.

            “Allison is here and looks like she can kick ass with Mr. Scary Guns here, so I’m fine now. Go track down the omega and then come hug me until I’m better. Bye Derek!” Stiles quickly said the last few words and hung up on the phone call.

            Cora started to twitch and emit odd sounds from the back of her throat, pushing Stiles further back against the cabinet.

            “Is this the Hale girl or the other omega?” Mr. Scary Guns (ok fine, Mr. Argent) asked quickly.

            “That’s Cora, Derek’s sister.” Stiles said, unsure whether or not to trust the older man.

            His response was to shoot a bullet from the gun in his left hand into the right shoulder of the slowly-waking werewolf.

            Stiles froze for a second before glaring at the man, “What the hell?! You can’t just shoot her!”

            The man merely fixed his stare on Stiles for a moment before putting the safety on both guns and storing them behind his back. Allison ran over to Stiles and helped him up from the floor. She raised an eyebrow curiously at him when he pointedly ignored the ringing phone that was now settled into his pocket.

            “Do you want me to get you your phone, Stiles?” Allison asked, always calm in situations of panic such as this, or when the cappuccino machine threatened explosion.

            “One, Scott would probably kill me if I let you stick your hand anywhere in my pants.” He glanced over to the stiffened man by the door and laughed, “Add your dad to that list as well. Two, It’s Derek calling, and if they’ve dealt with the omega, he will see me soon enough. He already knows I’m fine, and Laura will keep him from coming back before things are finished.”

            Allison nodded, and helped Stiles over to the couch that he decided was much too stiff after having been abandoned for a few days now.

            “Dad, would you look at Stiles’ hand, please?” She asked her father, slipping the bow back off of her shoulder, and started to inspect the windows facing out of the house, bow drawn, arrow ready to be loosened. With his daughter on patrol, Mr. Argent moved his hands from where they were resting on his gun holsters and walked over to the Sheriff’s son.

            Mr. Argent walked over to Stiles and sat down quietly on the couch next to him. He gently took Stiles’ hand, causing Stiles to suck air through his teeth instead of physically recoiling from the jolt of pain that shot through his arm. A few attempts were made to tilt and turn the wrist, and after painfully prodding a few different spots on his hand, wrist, and arm, Mr. Argent determined that Stiles’ wrist was fractured. It was going to need to be in a cast for a while, though obviously a professional medical opinion should “be obtained, young man.”

            As soon as Mr. Argent made his way to the window to help his daughter patrol, Stiles scrunched up his face and attempted to glare a hole in the man’s back for treating him like a kid.

            When the two kept pacing around the house, occasionally patrolling the upstairs area, Stiles took a minute to absorb the scene. His coworker was keeping watch over him with her bow and arrow, despite her family selling guns to local law enforcement.

            “Allison, why don’t you have a gun? I thought Scott said your family is like… gun-central or something?”

            Allison sighed lightly, as if she were waiting for this question. She smiled over at Stiles, but kept up her patrol while she replied, “I prefer the bow. My dad sells guns, but lots of hunters use bows and arrows. It leaves more options like flares, and is more versatile in a fight.”

            Stiles nodded numbly, realizing that Allison was more of a badass than he had ever imagined.

            “I think I missed a page of the story here… why are you such a badass? And why are you and your dad patrolling this place?”

A curious look from Allison told him that he was supposed to know this already,

“You weren’t supposed to be here, were you?” She asked with a raised eyebrow. Stiles winced a bit and explained that Derek and Scott kept everything secret so he had to trick Isaac into telling him.

Mr. Argent walked back down the stairs, eyes scanning the windows, as if he could see better from the stairs. Allison glanced at him and with a small smile, she sat down on the couch with Stiles.

“My dad and I are hunters. Werewolf hunters, to be precise.” Allison said, obviously watching Stiles’ face for his reaction.

“Well that sounds… complicated, considering your relationship with Scott. Wait, so if you’re a hunter, why haven’t you killed all of the werewolves in Beacon Hills?”

Mr. Argent sighed from his spot by the door, “We don’t kill senselessly. We follow a strict code. We only hunt werewolves that have killed an innocent or are causing serious problems for law enforcement.”

Stiles nodded along, but it felt like a weight he hadn’t even realized was there had been pushed off of his chest. No one was secretly living in his hometown to kill his best friend, his boyfriend, his other friend, and his dad’s deputies. Well crap, the werewolves had apparently become instrumental to the Stilinski household when Stiles wasn’t looking.

“So where can I read up on these werewolf hunter rules?” Stiles asked Allison, who had started to look a bit panicked at his silence.

She blinked, “Pardon?”

“Well, if you have to kill our friends if they violate one of these rules, I want to know what those rules are so it doesn’t come to that.” It was simple. If Stiles could help his friends, reading a hunter handbook was an easy sacrifice.

“It’s pretty simple. They don’t kill anyone, we don’t kill them.”

Stiles huffed in annoyance. This kind of black and white logic is what causes issue all over the country, so why were people in charge of people’s lives keeping with that logic?

“What is they killed someone charged with murder but no one knows if they actually committed the murder or not?” protested Stiles, because obviously hypotheticals were the best means to convince Mr. Argent his logic was flawed.

He could have sworn he heard Allison breathe out a small laugh, but he didn’t know if she saw the flaw in her occupation’s logic or not, so he couldn’t treat her as an ally yet.

Mr. Argent raised an eyebrow at him, “This hypothetical someone could have been innocent.”

“You don’t know that. That person’s death could mean no one else would lose their life, but you’re willing to punish them simply because they’re different from you?”

“Werewolves are not supposed to exist, and it is our job to keep the balance in the world.”

“Keep the balance? Are we going to keep a quota of all different kinds of people now? Yeah, that sounds legal and equal. Let’s just go back to 1924 why don’t we?” Stiles pulled himself off the couch easily now that he knew how to hold his arm so the pain stayed only in his wrist.

“Look, I understand you have a code and I appreciate that you have not killed anyone in our pack yet, but I am not comfortable with the black and white views you have.” Stiles really wished he could cross his arms to show his frustration right now.

“We’re working on it Stiles.” Allison said quietly from behind him on the couch.

He turned around to face her, but Mr. Argent began to speak, “There’s a hunter conference in Sacramento next month, and our family has been trying to have hunters adopt a more democratic approach to hunting, especially with unknown packs.”

The door creaked open, effectively startling all three humans in the room.

“This would have been good information for you to pass on, Chris.” Laura stood in the doorway, eyes flaring red.

“Hello, Allison, glad to see you well. Scott is on his way in.” Allison nodded and slipped past the alpha once her bow was slung over her shoulder.

“Stiles, you ok?” Laura finally dropped the formal “Alpha voice,” that Derek always joked about.

He nodded, but her eyes immediately focused on his arm that he held at an odd angle. The alpha immediately turned her fiery eyes on Chris Argent. “What did you do?”

Chris took his hands off his holsters, “Nothing. Your pack member is a moron and tried to fight your bloodthirsty sister off with a frying pan. Didn’t realize the recoil is as bad as punching someone without knowing what you’re doing. Your sister is still in the kitchen, the tranquilizer will wear off in a few hours. Now if that will be all,” Chris made his way to the front door.

Laura’s arm shot out across the doorway, effectively blocking his exit.

“We will have a meeting to discuss the changes in the hunters code before this conference.” Laura demanded.

Chris Argent seemed to bristle at the demands, “Our code is our business.”

More of the scarlet seemed to leak into Laura’s eyes, demanding that everyone’s attention was on the threat in her eyes. “Your code dictates our lives. It is our business as well. There will be a meeting or there will be consequences.” Laura opened the door a bit more for Chris Argent to storm out.

Laura turned around to speak to Stiles, but he was distracted by the creak of the porch as Derek and Scott helped Isaac limp into the house. All three were covered in blood, but Stiles couldn’t focus on anything but the pieces of Isaac’s skin that were hanging off where they shouldn’t have been.

Stiles immediately rushed forward, but Derek told him he needed to back up, Isaac’s wolf wasn’t stable. Reluctantly, Stiles sunk back against the wall so Isaac could be laid on the couch. His other wounds were already knitting themselves back together, which, ok that was gross, look away, look away.

Stiles heard a crack and then Derek and Scott were pinning down a writhing Isaac.

“His bones tried to heal incorrectly, so they’re resetting themselves… but Isaac’s wolf was never properly in control in stressful situations…” Laura said quietly from where she stood behind Stiles.

“It’s probably because he was abused by his father his whole life,” Stiles murmured, trying not to think too hard about the suffering Isaac must have gone through. A gentle hand settled on his shoulder, Laura reassuring her pack.

“Don’t worry, Stiles. We’ll help him.” She looked over at the blonde who was now calmed down and more sickening cracks were sounding from his chest area. “You’re his roommate this coming school year, right?”

Stiles nodded but couldn’t tear his eyes away from his bloodied friends.

“We’ll come and check on him often, but just call anytime if there is an issue ok? I’m sure Derek won’t mind driving up, if he gets to see you.”

Derek looked up at Stiles when he heard Laura’s comment. They hadn’t talked about what they were going to do after Stiles went back to school, hell they hadn’t been dating long enough for them to even figure out their first real date. But Stiles’ encouraging little smile eased his worries for now.

In an hour, Isaac was healed and in a deep sleep to recover the energy used to heal and reheal himself. Scott had cleaned off Isaac’s blood and Allison drove him home. Laura and Peter had moved Cora up to Laura’s room, where she would make her submit if she woke up soon. Derek and Stiles were sitting facing each other on the couch downstairs, Derek’s hand resting on Stiles’ forearm. His veins were turning black and the pain in Stiles’ wrist was disappearing enough that Stiles didn’t have to deal with the emergency room tonight. Derek had already made him promise to go to the doctor tomorrow to get x-rays and most likely a cast, if not a sling.

“So… is this it? Is the threat gone? We’re safe and free to go?” Stiles asked cautiously, trying not to focus on the bloodstains on Derek’s shirt  

A tight smile pulled at Derek’s lips, “Probably not. Threats are a constant thing for werewolves, especially for our pack, for some reason. It doesn’t help having hunters in permanent residence on our land, but we’ll make do.” Derek paused and slid his hand across the couch’s fabric to squeeze Stiles’ good hand. “I’ll keep myself safe, though. You can go back to Berkeley and not worry about me, all right?”

Stiles’ brow crinkled together and he sighed a bit too heavily for a young man. “Derek, I’m going to worry. I’m always going to worry about you, even if it’s just worrying about Laura letting you drive your Camaro.”

The gentle grip on Stiles’ hand tightened, so he gingerly put his other hand over the wolf’s hand, carefully not jostling his wrist, “Worrying doesn’t do me any harm, not really. It sucks, but hey, that’s life. So Mr. Deputy, I suggest we make the most of the next few weeks and then once I leave, we keep in touch and have Werewolf Weekends every so often at my apartment. Then you can check up on Isaac, and we can have lovely escapades through Berkeley and you can sniff me or whatever it is werewolves do on dates, and—“

Derek cut Stiles off with a kiss. Immediately, Stiles one-handedly pushed Derek off with a quick, “Rude!” before pulling him back in for a proper kiss.

Peter was just walking down the stairs to get a drink out of the fridge and he made a disgusted noise.

“Gross, cooties!”

Derek and Stiles both rolled their eyes, though Stiles showcased his superior maturity by sticking his tongue out at the older man over Derek’s shoulder.

“Cute, Stiles.” Derek commented dryly.

Stiles smirked back and despite the terror of the day, there wasn’t a panic attack to be seen. Derek had mentioned something about an anchor for werewolves shifting, but maybe Stiles had really needed an anchor for his brain. He felt the calm pulse through Derek’s wrist, and the man somehow emitted a calming scent even to Stiles’ human nose.

One of Derek’s overly-talkative eyebrows raised when he caught Stiles’ focused stare.

“Everything ok, Stiles?”

Stiles nodded and hugged the man with his good arm, before saying goodnight and taking the Jeep home. He filled his dad in once he walked through the door and John promised to wake him up early so they could go get his arm looked at, and went to sleep. If a werewolf leaned against a tree across the street from his house, listening to his heartbeat in case he slipped into a panic attack, who would know. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for the delay, I decided to wait to post this chapter until I had the final chapter written as well just in case I forgot something (as I usually do). 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I will post the final chapter after the mid-season finale airs as a means of recovery because it's fluffier than cotton candy and just as horribly sweet. 
> 
> Feel free to give me story prompts (I will seriously adore you if you do) over at [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/)
> 
> If for some reason you felt kudos weren't enough, [my ko-fi page is now up & running!](ko-fi.com/kimske)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5 years later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to seriously apologize in advance for the sheer fluff of this chapter.

“Lydia, I’m home!” Stiles called out joyously as he threw the door of Café Luna open.

With an exasperated toss of her hair, Lydia rolled her eyes away from Jackson’s face across the table she was sitting at, to face Stiles.

“Shouldn’t you be annoying your boyfriend instead of terrorizing my store?”

By now, Stiles could tell Lydia’s death threats were only slightly serious, so he swept her up into a jubilant hug, despite her piercing glare. From the huffing noise next to him, Stiles figured out Jackson was not happy about his arrival back in town so he pulled Lydia closer and cooed, “You’re my favorite, Lyds!”

Lydia pushed away with a small crack of a fond smile on her face. “That is a horrible nickname. Try again.” She crossed her arms, while Jackson glared at Stiles from over the top of his cappuccino.

“Lyd?” Stiles asked, slightly thrown over the focus-shift in the conversation.

The woman shook her head.

“The wonderful and all-knowing Mrs. Whittemore?” Stiles scrunched up his face a bit, never one to give up a chance to poke fun at Jackson.

Lydia handed Stiles her empty mug, “Screw you, he took my name after the wedding and you know it. Now, go show off your coffee skills.”

Stiles saluted the woman and strolled behind the counter. Cora waved at him from the register where she was ringing up Greenburg. Stiles immediately started mixing up his favorite latte concoction flavored with hazelnut, strawberry, and mint mixed in perfect proportion.

“Since when did you get talented behind the counter?” Stiles attempted to roll his eyes at the familiar male voice without smiling, but ended up just beaming at the uniformed man across the counter.

“My boyfriend told me to get a job when I was away at college so I could pay for gas money to visit him, so I worked at the campus coffee shop. Best Barista at Cal, you know.”

“I know.” The proud look on Derek’s face made Stiles want to jump him from across the pick up counter, but he calmly restrained himself and tried to ignore the blush that was surely flooding his face. 

A gagging noise sounded from the tables behind Derek.

“Shut up, Jackson!” Stiles called as he carried Lydia’s drink to her table.

“I’ll stop when you two stop acting like you belong in a damn rom-com.” Jackson glowered.

“You practically pranced around the café when Lydia said yes, so I don’t think you can say anything, moron.” Stiles stuck his tongue out at Lydia’s husband.

Lydia and Derek both sighed softly. “Aren’t you so glad we chose mature men?” Lydia asked Derek with a long-suffering look.

Derek nodded gently, though he was still not quite used to Lydia treating him as a friend instead of a point of communication between her and Stiles. Quietly, Derek glanced over to where Stiles’ hands were flailing through the air to illustrate some point he was making to Jackson. Derek stepped next to Stiles gently and slid his hand into the one closest to hitting him in the face, and promptly pulled Stiles away from where Jackson was sitting.

“Wha-hey! I was arguing!” Stiles spluttered as he followed Derek to the door of the café.

“Yes, which is why we are leaving. I choose to pretend I have a mature boyfriend, and watching you stick your tongue out at your high school ‘nemesis,’ as you so charmingly called him, does not make that any easier to do.”

Stiles laughed and waved goodbye to his friends as he made his way out to Derek’s Camaro. Laura had finally gotten herself a car (“It’s a Mustang Convertible, Stiles. Don’t insult her by just calling her a _car_.”), so Derek was able to drive the Camaro more often than the Sheriff’s Department car.

As Stiles slid into the sleek car, he pulled out his phone to call Scott. He quickly demanded his best friend bring food over to the Hale house as soon as he finished his shift at Deaton’s. Scott grumbled about being exhausted from vet school, but Stiles promised coffee at the house so he ultimately relented. Derek pulled the car into the newly built garage because Laura had decided leaving her convertible and Derek’s car outside in the middle of a forest was not a good way to preserve their babies.

Walking in the house now was always a little staggering. In the five years since Stiles had met Derek, the house had changed a lot. Hell, the entire pack had changed a lot. Stiles was finally officially living in the Hale house now that his schooling was finished. He had tried to convince Derek to live in an apartment with him while he completed his Masters’ program, but Derek was helping new pack members adjust and as much as he wanted to live with Stiles, he couldn’t abandon the pack. Isaac had been Stiles’ roommate since that summer anyway, so they just continued the arrangement.

Funny thing, how everyone had adjusted to their new lives in the past few years. Cora was working at Café Luna after forming a terrifying bond with Lydia that led to many embarrassing summers. Lydia still pretended she worked at Café Luna whilst she worked on her thesis and blew older students in her Masters program out of the water.

Jackson, still an utter dick, had funded a basement-founded business that was now earning him absurd amounts of money each year, since he obviously was short on money. Thankfully, Lydia had coerced him into filtering a lot of the money into charity and helping local education, mainly because it made everyone ignore Jackson’s dumb moments and pretend he was a local hero.

Scott and Allison were happily married, with Scott working his way through the hell known as veterinary school, and Allison was working with Stiles’ father to become a county deputy. Isaac had been hired on at Beacon Hills Community College, so he was all too happy to stay with the pack again.

Peter had figured out how to reign in the creepiness for limited amounts of time, and was a freelancer for the local architecture firm. Lydia may or may not have bribed them into finding constant work for the man so no one had to deal with extended periods of Uncle Peter.

Erica and Boyd were still at the sheriff’s office, much to John’s glee, but they were quickly becoming some of the best deputies in the surrounding counties. Derek, however, had somehow ended up as the town’s favorite deputy and was currently in-line to become the Sheriff after John stepped down. Stiles shook his head, but decided Derek’s salary would supplement his Beacon Hills High salary quite nicely.

The Hale House was bustling with new family members, all sorts of adopted wolves and old allies had fallen together to grow the Hale pack back to its former grandeur. There were even the clumsy noises of the werebaby (“Just call it a baby, dammit Stiles.”) that had accompanied the couple that arrived last year after all their packmates had been murdered.

Derek slipped his hand down to Stiles’ lower back and eased him forward and up the stairs to their bedroom. For having dated for the past 5 years, ignoring the 2 times they briefly broke up, they had never shared a living space. Stiles knew it was the next logical step in the relationship, but it wasn’t the kind of issue he was used to facing anymore.

Even away at Cal, Stiles had been constantly doing research on new threats to Beacon Hills or taking in injured werewolves and the occasional fairy (long story). To have a normal, domestic, human issue was… well, unusual.

When Stiles looked up, brow wrinkled, to ask Derek a question, he froze. The look of joy shining in Derek’s eyes was stunning. Stiles could hardly break that rare moment of open happiness to ask why they were allowed to be happy and domestic. This was probably what Derek had expected before the Hale fire, and if Stiles could give that to him…

“Stop thinking so hard.” Derek rolled his eyes as he slipped Stiles’ bags out of his hands and slid them into the closet.

“I was just thinking—“ Stiles was cut-off by Derek pulling him towards the bed.

“Cheesy things that could put rom coms to shame?” Derek supplied, chuckling lightly.

Stiles smacked him lightly and settled onto the bed, looking around.

“How is this my life now? A few years ago I took the job at Café Luna on a whim so I would have something to do. Somehow, it led me to the most doting and overprotective werewolf boyfriend in the country.” Stiles laughed as he flopped back onto the bed.

“We’re finally alone in a room with a bed, and you choose to reflect on your life _now_?” Derek laughed, but flopped down next to his boyfriend all the same.

“Yes, because my brain has always made logical jumps and kept on track all the time.” An almost vocal eye-roll lured Derek in for a kiss.

“It’s endearing. At least to me, hopefully not to anyone else.” Derek snuffled into the side of Stiles’ neck.

The large door to their room flew open, revealing Laura holding a milk frother and looking positively… frothed. “Stiles, we may or may not have an emergency downstairs.”

An exuberant and fond laugh bubbled out of Stiles mouth, making Derek want to pull him back in and soak in the joy in his life, but he also didn’t want the beautiful kitchen to die a sad and frothy death. Stiles skittered downstairs with his older sister, leaving Derek on the bed.

With an agile roll, Derek pulled open the drawer on his nightstand. In the corner sat a delicate black velvet box, with the old ring his father wore. Maybe he would ask tomorrow, Derek decided, trying to find a new “perfect moment,” now that the bedroom plan had flopped.

A small private smile burst onto Derek’s face as he pushed the drawer shut. He had all the time in the world now. He had a pack, a family, and his love to share it with. Things were going to be different this time.

But he was still on coffee runs, since Stiles was always too lazy to get coffee in the mornings. So some things were the same, despite the long list of changes. The couple would still fight as they always did, but they worked, Derek truly believed that. They balanced each other out, and brought out the best in one another. Derek snorted at himself for reaching Stiles-levels of corny lines.

Stiles ran back into the room, a crazed look in his eye.

“There’s so much coffee. Come help. Now.” Derek got up slowly and pecked a kiss to the man’s mouth.

“You didn’t say please.”

A quick roll of the eyes, “ _Please_ get your fine ass downstairs and do something useful.”

Derek walked downstairs to find 12 mismatched mugs filled with coffee and frothed milk, and nearly busted his gut laughing. Damn, talk about full circle. Some things never do change then. With a light noogie to his boyfriend’s soft hair, Derek sat down and picked up the mug closest to his bar stool.

Derek shuddered at a terrifying though, soothed softly by Stiles’ hand resting on his shoulder.

Just imagine if Derek didn’t drink coffee. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and thank you for sticking with this story to the very end! I truly appreciate it and I loved working on it! So much so, in fact, that I am planning on doing a series of oneshots of missing scenarios or things that I wanted to put in, but just didn't think would fit in the main plot. Feel free to leave a comment or drop an ask in my askbox over at [my tumblr](http://thatfamoushappyending.tumblr.com/) to let me know what you think (ngl a lot of it would be fluff)!
> 
> If for some reason you felt kudos weren't enough, [my ko-fi page is now up & running!](ko-fi.com/kimske)
> 
> Thank you again so very much for reading, leaving kudos, and even commenting! You all have been great <3


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